The economics of malaria

Jeffrey Sachs is one of the most celebrated economists in the world. He has acted as special economics adviser to the UN, the World Bank and the IMF. In his influential paper of 2001 ” The economic burden of malaria’ written with JL Sachs he tackled the question of malaria as an influence on poverty. In the paper he proposed that malaria, rather then being a consequence of poverty, was a cause of poverty. They  showed that, independent of other factors, the incidence of malaria had a high correlation with economic growth. You can check out a video of Sachs discussing his work on malaria here: