The Public Policy Initiative @ UCR
presents
“Hunger And Malnutrition Among The Global
Priorities: The
Thursday, May 19,
Hunger and malnutrition are pervasive in much of the developing world. Not only do hunger and malnutrition cause immediate welfare losses to those afflicted, they also reduce productivity. This presentation addresses productivity gains that can be obtained from improving hunger and malnutrition and how the returns from improving hunger and malnutrition compare with the returns from other investments in development. In particular, in 2004 the Danish government convened a panel of eight of the world's most distinguished economists (including three Nobel laureates) to set priorities among proposals for confronting ten great global challenges (selected from a wider set of issues identified by the United Nations). Behrman was one of the co-authors of the paper on hunger and malnutrition and in this presentation will discuss the returns to reducing hunger and improving nutrition in the developing world and how the Copenhagen Panel judged these gains compared with those for the other nine challenges that they considered.About the Lecturer
Jere R. Behrman (PhD, MIT, 1966) is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests are in empirical micro-economics, economic development, labor economics, and economic demography. He has published over 250 professional articles and 30 books and monographs on these topics. He has been the principal investigator co-principal investigator on over 50 research projects funded by organizations, including NSF, NIH, Rockefeller Foundation, and Ford Foundation. He has worked as a research consultant with numerous national and international organizations, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. He has received various honors, including being selected a Fulbright 40th Anniversary Distinguished Fellow, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Guggenheim Foundation Faculty Fellow, and a Ford Foundation Faculty Fellow.