This week's links on how our lives are literally getting shorter, a great example of politicians giving economists an ulcer, why it's not enough to produce and distribute the C-19 vaccine, and why you should look beyond the GDP numbers.
Get to that bucket list, fast: Folks at the Energy Policy Institute of The University of Chicago (EPIC) have a new report out on the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) and it isn’t looking good.
The average resident of Delhi-NCR loses over 9 years of life thanks to air pollution. The average Indian resident loses more than 5 years.
You can access the India Fact Sheet here. You can also go here for a nifty, interactive tool that allows you to play with the data - see the numbers for other parts of the world and travel back in time to see how these have evolved. A summary news report if you’d like to read more is here.
Note that government of India had declared a “war on pollution” in 2019 with the launch of the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) to reduce particulate pollution by 20-30% (from 2017) by 2024. While I couldn’t find an official update on this, a civil society tracker has found slow progress in disbursement of funds.
When politicians give economists ulcers: Read an excellent two-part series here on how the smog towers proposed for Delhi have no scientific basis. They are attractive for governments because they are visible, don’t require handling opposing interest groups (the polluters can go on with business as usual), and use everyone’s favourite solution to all problems – technology. But there is no evidence that they work, and since there is only so much public money – money spent on them is money taken away from what truly works.
The smog towers are exactly the kind of things that make economists miserable, and politicians delirious with joy.
You can’t make me take the vaccine: A vaccine for Covid-19 is turning into a great Public Policy 101 case study. You already know that there many challenges to the development, manufacturing and distribution of a vaccine, but that's not all.
It turns out that once you have a vaccine ready and waiting, not everyone will be queuing up for it.
A new study based on a survey of 4,000 slum dwellers in Lucknow and Kanpur found that if a COVID-19 vaccine is introduced, 36% of those surveyed will only get vaccinated if they did not have to pay for it.
5% of the population will not get vaccinated at all. Remember that 95% are willing to take the vaccine and that’s not terrible. The authors show that this is higher than such willingness in at least 7 European countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the UK).
So what's the policy implication?
One, we will need to subsidise the Covid-19 vaccine - even provide it for free. This should be a no-brainer for most vaccines any way, especially for diseases with such high rates of infection. The social benefits of getting vaccinated are far larger than an individual’s, and the state must step in.
Two, we need a celebrity. When people know and understand the disease, they are more likely to take the vaccine (though information that leads to panic reduces compliance). India's experience with polio seems to agree with wider findings that celebrity endorsement affects people’s healthcare decisions. We could get Bachchan again or you know, anyone. I'm just leaving this here.
There’s more to life than the GDP: As calls for greater Aatmanirbharta or self-reliance for economic growth gain ground, read this very good Mint opinion piece on an aspect of economic growth that we often miss. It is not only the size of your economy or the growth numbers over the years that matter – but also the nature of this growth.
The quality of growth, and the resultant structure of the economy is what further drives high, sustained, effective, and enabling growth.
Comparing India, China, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, the piece find that even when India had the same per capita income as these countries, the contribution of manufacturing to its national output was far lower (less than 25%) than in the others (35-47%).
Manufacturing remains crucial for both growth and development, least of all for its ability to create jobs at a large scale.
Manufacturing has played a key role in the economic growth of developing countries, and the reason for its decline is not because it no longer holds potential but because countries have failed to make conditions conducive for this. See also this paper on how going forward, the right combination of domestic politics and international politics will determine India's quality of growth.
How to learn anything: Finally, a Farnam Street blog here on the Feynman Technique and how the best way to learn anything is to teach it to a child. If you’re stuck at home with kids, this may be one way to put them to good use. Though they're probably keeping themselves busy any way.