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June 16, 2005
Thinking Globally
I've been doing research on Global Public Goods, or GPGs, at the Bank these last couple weeks. GPGs are a paradigm for development work, and they have a lot in common with the Tragedy of the Commons. Remember that? Originally used by Garrett Hardin in a 1968 article, the phrase reminds us that when people share a public good for which responsibility is diffuse, they will tend to use it to its maximum capacity without bearing the full negative cost of their actions. For example, polluters who dump into the ocean do so because they reap all the benefits (cheap disposal of toxins) without claiming all the costs (the polluted water is "shared" with the rest of the ecosystem).
Global Public Goods are a bigger implementation of this idea. The International Task Force on Global Public Goods defines it this way:
A key element of the definition is that individual countries or entities cannot, or will not, by themselves deal adequately with the concern and there is therefore a clear need for collective, multilateral action. This would eliminate many subjects that often are loosely labeled as international public goods, such as primary education, that clearly can and should be addressed by individual countries. Individual countries should take full responsibility for what they can address, and the growing attention to the international public goods agenda should not dilute such responsibilities and shift responsibility to the world community. The principle of subsidiarity should apply.
The implications of GPGs when tied to their costs could be, I think, a powerful tool for getting the public interested in development. Right now, your average American couldn't care less about disease in Africa. On the other hand, malaria alone costs Africa millions of dollars every year in lost productivity, tardy medical care, and the continued spread of a disease that should have been wiped out long ago. That price is passed on to the US through disease, increased cost of keeping the problem from spreading, and losses for businesses who have to risk interacting with those countries. I personally think that development should be a moral and ethical responsibility, but those who are on the fence may be swayed by a more economic argument.
Speaking of economic arguments, have you ever taken a look at remittances, the money sent back overseas by immigrants to various countries? A paper by Jens Reinke and Neil Patterson of the IMF states:
The Bank notes that these remittances may go up to more than $200 billion by the year 2020--that's more than total official development aid! I'm not convinced, personally, that immigration can be shown to have hurt our economy (note that 1/3 of the current $90 billion goes to Latin America, probably from unskilled labor that US citizens aren't particularly interested in performing), but this certainly seems to show that it helps.
What other issues could be framed as a global public good? Can this be useful in encouraging progressive social policy?
