Global Crises, Global Solutions (1st Edition)
This volume provides a uniquely rich set of arguments and data for prioritizing our responses to some of the most serious problems facing the world today, such as climate change, communicable diseases, conflicts, education, financial instability, corruption, migration, malnutrition and hunger, trade barriers, and water access. Leading economists evaluate the evidence for costs and benefits of various programs to help gauge how we can achieve the most good with our money. Each problem is introduced by a world-renowned expert analyzing the scale of the problem and describing the costs and benefits of a range of policy options to improve the situation. Shorter pieces from experts offering alternative positions are also included; all ten challenges are evaluated by a panel of economists from North America, Europe, and China who rank the most promising policy options. Global Crises, Global Solutions provides a serious, yet accessible, springboard for debate and discussion and will be required reading for government employees, NGOs, scholars and students of public policy and applied economics, and anyone with a serious professional or personal interest in global development issues. Bjørn Lomborg is Associate Professor of Statistics at the University of Aarhus and the director of the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute. He is also the author of the controversial bestseller, The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge, 2001).
Testimonials
A hugely sensible book about global health and environmental problems, based on the “Copenhagen Consensus” project documented in The Economist. Its authors, eminent economists, recognise that the resources to tackle such problems are finite and need to be applied where they are most likely to be effective. Better, for instance, to spend resources on the immediate problem of AIDS in Africa than the more distant one of global warming. This book is a healthy antidote to the narrow views of single-issue pressure groups."
– The Economist, Books of the Year 2003
... an instructive guide ... a remarkable book which provides essential data for any informed discussion of vital world problems ... so often dominated by ill-informed debate. This book should prove necessary reading for all policy makers and philanthropists concerned with seriously tackling the world's challenges."
- Nicholas Newman, www.oxfordprospect.co.uk
Global Crises, Global Solutions is, therefore, worthwhile in that it offers an economic perspective on important problems in global policy."
- Lancet
...contains some of the best and most relevant policy research that social scientists have produced during the past few years."
- Journal of Peace Research
In the end, Global Crises, Global Solutions reports a brave and well-organised venture aimed at challenging our thinking about what matters most in the world."
- Times Higher Education Supplement