Proposal for New Social Contract in Global Pharmaceutical Industry

The East-West Center presents "A Modest Proposal for a New Social Contract in the Global Pharmaceutical Industry," a Research Program Brown Bag Seminar by Sumner La Croix, senior fellow, East-West Center. The global system for creating and distributing pharmaceuticals is in crisis. There is little research underway to develop treatments for some of the most important diseases in low-income countries. Treatments for other diseases�in particular, HIV�are not widely available in low- or middle-income countries.

In this workshop, La Croix identifies and analyzes the foundations of this crisis: imperfect insurance covering pharmaceutical purchases in high-income countries, free-riding behavior by high-income governments and imperfectly sealed country markets for pharmaceuticals. La Croix then presents a "social contract" that �if adopted by both high- and low-income countries�could lead to both increased research on important diseases and more widespread distribution of pharmaceuticals to treat these diseases.

La Croix is a professor of economics at the University of Hawai�‘i at Manoa, senior fellow and coordinator of the Economics Study Area at the East-West Center and affiliate faculty member with the UH Manoa Center for Chinese Studies. He has also held visiting positions at various universities including Columbia University, the University of California-Berkeley and the Australian Graduate School of Management.

La Croix�s research focuses on the history, development and current state of economies in the Asia-Pacific region, with an emphasis on issues pertaining to institutional change, property rights, and organization and regulation of industry. Current research projects include an intellectual property rights and trade agreements study, China�s international trade and a book on Hawai�i�s economic history.

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