13 de August, 2020

Webinar FEN-MIT: “Vaccine Nationalism and the Future of Trade”

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A new webinar was held between FEN and MIT: “Vaccine Nationalism and the Future of Trade”. On this occasion the guest was Chad Bown, an expert in international trade at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. As usual, Dean José De Gregorio and Roberto Rigobon, Professor at the Sloan School of Management, MIT, were the commentators.

Chad Bown indicated that the vaccine is the light that keeps us all going and pointed out that he has investigated the special nature of the vaccine market, as well as its international trade, the supply chain, and how it will be distributed.


He indicated that there are several possible vaccines, but that they are being developed in different phases. He also pointed out that "distributing a vaccine without phase three is not a good thing to do and there are several scientific reasons."


He pinpointed that “the main problem with the distribution of the vaccine is that traditionally it is delivered to children so that they are not exposed to certain diseases, but for a long time we seen that vaccines are not delivered quickly enough in poor countries. There are many market failures in these scenarios. Poor countries cannot generate market demand. Vaccines, unlike other drugs, are used once or twice, not like medicine that you must take repeatedly. It is not such a big market and the science to develop and manufacture vaccines has great costs. There are a couple of countries in the world that have the capacity to do this and everything is also highly regulated”.
 

Download papper The Tragedy of Vaccine Nationalism Only