tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159906646513306121.post7701867737440235431..comments2023-11-19T20:38:50.237-08:00Comments on Economic Logic: Is Jeff Sachs wrong again?Economic Logicianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171296292101248614noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159906646513306121.post-53352899179591104462008-01-12T10:27:00.000-08:002008-01-12T10:27:00.000-08:00Malaria data may be available, but its reliability...Malaria data may be available, but its reliability should be highly questioned. I do not trust any of Jeff Sachs' results on this. <BR/>If he manages to get attention on Africa with this work, fine. But I would prefer he were to manage that with believable resultsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159906646513306121.post-11515854393634643372008-01-10T14:34:00.000-08:002008-01-10T14:34:00.000-08:00Well as to where the data came from the following ...Well as to where the data came from the following would seem to be a solid possibility.<BR/>http://www.who.int/whosis/mort/profiles/en/index.html<BR/><BR/>Why malaria? Well it seems to be the treatable disease that costs most deaths. In Angola you are three times more likely to die of malaria than measles.<BR/><BR/>As to the question of endogenous or not to poverty the answer seems pretty clear. Poor people would not seem to intrinsically create heat and stagnant water which is pretty much as you need to breed mosquitos to transmit the malaria parasite.<BR/><BR/>Plus the nets are not just nets, they are treated with DDT. I am not sure it makes a lot of sense to set up hundreds of local factories to apply DDT to nets, I think you would want to maintain a little more control. And the reason they work is not because people huddle under them all day, by and large the mosquitoes are nocturnal and more likely to get a full meal when the victim is sleeping.Bruce Webbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13222670342780912788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159906646513306121.post-7115332360782770922008-01-09T10:23:00.000-08:002008-01-09T10:23:00.000-08:00I found this interesting paper, that uses theory, ...I found this <A HREF="http://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp2997.html" REL="nofollow">interesting paper</A>, that uses theory, properly calibrated, to evaluate the the cost of malaria. It uses theory to bypass the endogeneity problem I mentioned. One interesting feature is that it allows people to buy protection, if they can afford it. It turns out they will, as long as protection is effective. The cost of malaria is negligible then. But even minor ineffectiveness would lead to very significant costs, in the order of what Sachs seems to indicate.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159906646513306121.post-89622400871472771562008-01-09T07:09:00.000-08:002008-01-09T07:09:00.000-08:00Does anybody still believe in cross-country regres...Does anybody still believe in cross-country regressions? How people can rely on the results of regressions with tiny samples, huge measurement errors and gigantic endogeneity problems baffles me. And one can wonder, in this case, how Jeff Sachs came up with reliable malaria data.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4159906646513306121.post-12293852279936324232008-01-08T20:49:00.000-08:002008-01-08T20:49:00.000-08:00Jeff Sachs used to be a good economist. Now he is ...Jeff Sachs used to be a good economist. Now he is just going for the money and the photo-ops with celebrities. Pretty sad, and the press is falling for it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com