> In my view, point 1 is where Lant Pritchett (the author of the memo)
> screwed up. The social welfare costs are *not* proportional to
> forgone earnings.
>
> Points (2) and (3), by contrast, seem to me to be correct. World
> social welfare would rise if we moved polluting industries out of the
> Los Angeles basin to someplace poorer with cleaner air. And countries
> like Mozambique should be concerned with fighting malaria, not with
> reducing rates of prostate cancer in men over 80...
>
>
> Brad DeLong
*************
Wouldn't social welfare rise even more if we innovated our way out of producing the
source of the LA's airshed/watershed problems? Why should we simply move it somewhere
else? Globally that's a zero sum game. Plus if you move the stuff to the wrong place
you could do even more harm to different ecosystems. Definitely agree with 2nd
sentence and would go further and suggest that biomedical research companies enjoin
the struggle by substantially changing the composition of their R&D portfolios as
well as lobbying for better technology transfer policies, or are we not wealthy
enough for that yet?
Ian
