From the editor

• Author: Laura Wallace
• Position: Editor-in-Chief
• Pages: 1

Page 1

Most Low-Income Countries are unlikely to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for health by the target date of 2015 with current policies, institutions, and aid flows (as our December issue pointed out). This is important not just because the goals of cutting child and maternal deaths and reversing the spread of killer diseases like AIDS and malaria are worthy in their own right, but also because new studies show that investing in health can give a significant boost to GDP per capita. In other words, better health is not just a by-product of rising incomes: it promotes them as well.

In this issue of F&D, three experts on the economics of health and development explore these studies. But they also go a step further, arguing that past estimates of economic progress have been understated and that recent economic losses caused by HIV/AIDS are likewise being understated if economists rely on GDP per capita as a yardstick. They insist that a better indicator would be "full income"-a concept that captures the value of changes in life expectancy by including them in an assessment of economic welfare, in addition to income as measured in national accounts. For Africa, they say, this new yardstick "signals catastrophe ahead." We also ask Nobel prize winning economist Kenneth Arrow, the Chair of the Committee on the Economics of Anti-Malarial Drugs of the Institute of Medicine, for the latest thinking on how new antimalarial drugs can be developed and made affordable in poor countries. And we probe the murky world of medicines, patents, and TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights)-which has taken center stage of late because of the limited availability and high costs of AIDS drugs in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Also in this issue of F&D, we explore a little more deeply the question: "Are U.S. Households Living Beyond Their Means?" This is a major worry, given that the global economic recovery is being led by the United States and that household consumption is so important for U.S. growth. And we cast the...