Publication: Economic Benefit of Tuberculosis Control
Loading...
Date
2007-08
ISSN
Published
2007-08
Abstract
Tuberculosis is the most important infectious cause of adult deaths after HIV/AIDS in low- and middle-income countries. This paper evaluates the economic benefits of extending the World Health Organization's DOTS Strategy (a multi-component approach that includes directly observed treatment, short course chemotherapy and several other components) as proposed in the Global Plan to Stop TB, 2006-2015. The authors use a model-based approach that combines epidemiological projections of averted mortality and economic benefits measured using value of statistical life for the Sub-Saharan Africa region and the 22 high-burden, tuberculosis-endemic countries in the world. The analysis finds that the economic benefits between 2006 and 2015 of sustaining DOTS at current levels relative to having no DOTS coverage are significantly greater than the costs in the 22 high-burden, tuberculosis-endemic countries and the Africa region. The marginal benefits of implementing the Global Plan to Stop TB relative to a no-DOTS scenario exceed the marginal costs by a factor of 15 in the 22 high-burden endemic countries, a factor of 9 (95% CI, 8-9) in the Africa region, and a factor of 9 (95% CI, 9-10) in the nine high-burden African countries. Uncertainty analysis shows that benefit-cost ratios of the Global Plan strategy relative to sustained DOTS were unambiguously greater than one in all nine high-burden countries in Africa and in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Russia. Although HIV curtails the effect of the tuberculosis programs by lowering the life expectancy of those receiving treatment, the benefits of the Global Plan are greatest in African countries with high levels of HIV.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Laxminarayan, Ramanan; Klein, Eili; Dye, Christopher; Floyd, Katherine; Darley, Sarah; Adeyi, Olusoji. 2007. Economic Benefit of Tuberculosis Control. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 4295. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/7483 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication GDP-Employment Elasticities across Developing Economies(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-03)Economic growth is often associated with welfare gains through job creation. However, the number and quality of new job opportunities created in a growing economy vary across countries and sectors, due in great part to changes in labor productivity. This paper provides estimates of country and sector-specific GDP-employment elasticities based on data from the past two decades, including an evaluation of the predictive power among alternative methodological approaches. The results show that employment elasticities of growth vary significantly across countries and sectors, but are in most cases below 1.0, implying that employment grows less than GDP due to increasing productivity. Across sectors, agriculture has mostly lower elasticity values, becoming negative for more than one-third of developing countries. In addition, increases in labor productivity are associated with reductions in informal employment. These empirical results are in line with the implications of a theoretical model about the relationship between GDP growth, job creation, and labor productivity in economies with varying levels of productivity and informality.Publication Yield Growth Patterns of Food Commodities(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-03)Understanding global food production and productivity patterns is crucial for policy and in-vestment decisions aimed at addressing poverty, food insecurity, and climate change. This paper develops comprehensive calorific-based production and yield indexes for 144 crops, covering 98 percent of global agricultural land and food output. These indexes provide standardized measures across various crops and varieties, facilitating comparison of agricultural productivity and consolidating country and regional contributions to global food production. Utilizing a Box-Cox transformation, the analysis finds that a linear model best approximates yield growth. The findings reveal that, at an aggregate level, there has been no discernable slowdown in global yield growth over the past six decades. This translates into an average annual yield increase equivalent to nearly 33 kilograms of wheat per hectare. These results suggest that any observed deceleration in specific commodities, regions, or countries has been offset by gains in others. While these findings are reassuring from a global food supply perspective, caution is warranted about the sustainability of production and the affordability of food. These concerns are particularly relevant as global food demand increases due to population and income growth, and as the pressures from climate change intensify. The study underscores the importance of adopting strategic and sustainable agricultural practices to ensure continued food security in the face of evolving global challenges.Publication The Only Way Is Up?(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-03)This study documents short-term economic mobility in Malaysia over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, at the population level and for various subgroups. The findings show broad and steady improvements in well-being, as evidenced by large decreases in chronic poverty and significant increases in persistent economic security. The study employs a synthetic panel approach based on nationally representative micro-level data for 2004–22, with a refinement that allows presenting bootstrap point estimates and standard deviations. In addition, the study investigates several poverty and vulnerability scenarios, as well as relative mobility. First, the results indicate that chronic poverty has decreased to 2–3 percent of the population. Nevertheless, progress is not uniform: around 15 percent of the population in rural East Malaysia lives in chronic poverty. Second, the study finds considerable increases in sustained economic security—the extent of improvement, however, depends on the approach and income thresholds that are used to define security. Moreover, ethnic and regional differences in secure status are sizable at higher income class thresholds. The largest differences are of a regional dimension: an individual in urban Peninsular Malaysia is more than three times more likely to live in economic security than someone in rural East Malaysia. Altogether, the study observes upward movement across the board but little evidence of dramatic changes in the relative positions of societal groups.Publication Global Ripple Effects(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-26)The three major players in the global economy, the United States, the European Union, and China, have been designing climate mitigation policies that will help reduce their carbon emissions but will also likely reshape developing countries’ trade, prices, and access to technology. This paper examines developing countries’ exposure to such changes. Overall, the policies are expected to curtail demand for fossil fuels, energy-intensive manufacturing, and agricultural exports linked to environmental degradation. They are also expected to open export opportunities in critical minerals, electric vehicles and their components, and renewable energy technologies and components. The exposure of affected export sectors and the overall economy to these changes will vary across countries based on the orientation of their export sectors to the markets in the European Union, the United States, and Chinese as well as the weight of affected exports in their economies. The climate policies will also likely reduce oil prices and raise critical mineral prices, help reduce the cost of green technologies, and increase green foreign investment. The paper draws recommendations for developing countries, the European Union, the United States, and China, as well as the international community, on how best to help developing countries lessen the potential negative competitiveness effects of these climate policies and make the most of the opportunities for a faster green transition and economic development.Publication Green Is Less Greedy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-26)Although green public procurement has been established as a desirable policy goal across the globe, especially in the European Union, its scope and impacts remain severely understudied. This paper provides insights into the prevalence and structure of green public procurement in Bulgaria, which is a sustainability laggard within the European Union and hence a least likely champion of green public procurement. The paper also estimates the impacts of green procurement on traditional procurement and economic outcomes: competition, corruption risks, and overall productivity. Using novel data and more comprehensive methods than previous studies, the analysis finds that green public procurement amounted to about 10 to 20 percent of total public procurement spending in Bulgaria in 2011–19. Most descriptors and requirements of green public procurement are found in titles, technical requirements, and product descriptions. Green criteria in award criteria texts, which are mainly used for flagging green public procurement in the literature, have been marginal in comparison. Green public procurement is estimated to improve competition for government contracts among firms, for example by increasing the prevalence of market entrants by 3 to 7 percentage points. Green public procurement contracts are also less prone to corruption risks. For example, they are 0.6 to 1.5 percentage points less likely to receive a single bidder. Finally, green public procurement enhances the efficiency of resource allocation in the economy by helping to channel public resources to more productive firms, for example to those that have 14 percent higher labor productivity. This effect is at least in part explained by the positive interaction between green public procurement and the lower risk of corruption. The findings strengthen the case for pursuing green public procurement goals as they offer synergies with traditional public procurement goals.