Economists should be like good clinical practitioners, approaching an economy as a doctor would approach the case of a patient, renowned American economist Jeffrey D. Sachs and winner of the 2022 Tang Prize in Sustainable Development, told CNA in a recent interview in New York.
“In order to be accurate and helpful in what to do, one must approach an economy as a doctor would approach the case of a patient, an ill patient,” said Sachs, who was named as the winner of the fifth Tang Prize in Sustainable Development at a press conference in Taipei Saturday.
“You need a differential diagnosis, you need to act like a clinician. Doctors take a Hippocratic Oath, saying ‘first do no harm.’ This also needs to be the ethical practice of an economic advisor,” said the 67-year-old economist.
Sachs said he received the inspiration from his wife of 42 years, who is a clinical pediatrician and a specialist in public health.
Over the years, Sachs said, he would see his wife carry out what doctors call differential diagnosis to try and identify the source of her patients’ symptoms, Sachs said.
“One of things I saw over many, many years was that when a patient came to her attention and had a fever or had some other symptoms, my wife, as a careful clinician, would carry out what the doctors call differential diagnosis to try and identify what is the source of those symptoms,” Sachs said.
“Because you have to understand the specific context and then make the specific prescription or the specific course of action to address the needs of that particular case,” he said. “Now, for economics, it should be the same. We should be good clinical practitioners.”
A native of Detroit, Michigan, Sachs is president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a Sustainable Development Goals Advocate for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, chair of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, and co-founder and director of Millennium Promise Alliance.
He is widely recognized for his bold and effective strategies to address complex challenges such as extreme poverty, human-induced climate change, international debt and financial crises, national economic reforms, and the control of pandemics and epidemics.
In 2005, Sachs wrote the book “The End of Poverty” and coined the expression “clinical economics” and even presented a differential diagnoses sheet on how to go through the various check lists of possible conditions to match them to symptoms like a doctor would do.
Every time he is confronted with a challenge while working with governments around the world, he would use the ideas of clinical economics by asking about the specifics of the economies and the countries and their cultures, Sachs said.
“I want to know the history, I want to know the context, I want to know the politics and the geopolitics, I want to understand the socio economics condition, because all of those factors are absolutely relevant to be able to make a meaningful diagnosis and a meaningful set of policy prescriptions for how to move forward to address whatever the special challenges are facing those countries,” Sachs told CNA.
One example was in a 2005 report he wrote for the United Nations, while working as special advisor on the Millennium Development Goals, Sachs said.
The report made recommendations to move forward to achieve breakthroughs, such as in the fight against malaria, Sachs said.
Malaria was raging as a killer disease in Africa because all the preventive means were not being used adequately, Sachs said.
Hence, there was a massive scale up in the use of insecticide-treated bed nets, with hundreds and hundreds of millions of special anti-malarial bed nets distributed through sub-Saharan Africa, which led to a 50-70 percent decline in cases and in deaths from malaria, Sachs said.
Sachs was named the winner of the fifth Tang Prize in Sustainable Development for “leading transdisciplinary sustainability science and creating the multilateral movement for its applications from village to nation and to the world,” according to an award citation released by the Tang Prize Foundation.
The Tang Prize is a biennial award established in 2012 by Taiwanese entrepreneur Samuel Yin (???), chairman of the Ruentex Group, to honor people who have made prominent contributions in four categories — sustainable development, biopharmaceutical science, sinology, and rule of law.
The winners in each category share a cash award of NT$40 million (US$1.34 million) and NT$10 million in research funding.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel