2.8 Cheers For the Dismal Science!

As it regresses to the mean... Say what you like about economists, they look pretty good to me in the 2008 Copenhagen Consensus Conference. Reason Magazine reports:

Eight leading economists, including five Nobelists, were asked to prioritize 30 different proposed solutions to ten of the world's biggest problems. The proposed solutions were developed by more than 50 specialist scholars over the past two years and were presented as reports to the panel over the past week. Since we live in a world of scarce resources, not all good projects can be funded. So the experts were constrained in their decision making by allocating a budget of an "extra" $75 billion among the solutions over four years.

The top ten are practical and cost-efficient real solutions to real problems. Getting Vitamin A and Zinc to children in developing countries tops the list. DAWG mitigation clocks in at 30:

So what proposed solutions are at the bottom of the list? At number 30, the lowest priority is a proposal to mitigate man-made global warming by cutting the emissions of greenhouse gases. This ranking caused some consternation among the European journalists at the press conference. Nobelist and University of Maryland economist Thomas Schelling noted that part of the reason for the low ranking is that spending $75 billion on cutting greenhouses gases would achieve almost nothing. In fact, the climate change analysis presented to the panel found that spending $800 billion until 2100 would yield just $685 billion in climate change benefits.

Even the believers in the bunch (Bjorn Lomborg, call your office!) see the greater value in more realistic projects. I think if you empanelled a group of serious anthropologists, environmentalists, or geographers, you'd be certain to get Global Warming in the top five. And unless Lomborg was seated, you wouldn't likely get much else of consequence.

Hat-tip: Instapundit

Economics and Markets Posted by jk at May 31, 2008 4:20 PM