Leading economists list cheapest ways to save the world

The Indian Times India Times, 14 May, 2012.

Leading economists have ranked how to best and most cost-effectively invest to solve many of the world's seemingly insurmountable problems, a Danish think-tank said Monday, calling for a shift in global priorities. "It may not sound sexy, but solving the problems of diarrhoea, worms and malnutrition will do good for more of the world's poor than other more grandiose interventions," Bjoern Lomborg, who heads the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, said in a statement. His think-tank on Monday presented the results of its third global Copenhagen Consensus, in which it asked prominent economists working within 10 of the world's top problem fields to propose the best investments to fix those problems.

A panel of experts, including four Nobel laureates, then went through the proposals and ranked the ones they believed would have the biggest impact and "where we can get the most mileage for our money," Lomborg told AFP. The Dane, who shot to fame with his book " The Skeptical Environmentalist" in 2001, insisted the list was necessary since policymakers and humanitarian organisations often allow irrational emotions to dictate how they spend money earmarked for fighting poverty, declining biodiversity or natural disasters. Read full article online