By Rachel Thrasher In 2018, Bangladesh met the necessary criteria for graduation from Least Developed Country (LDC) status and is now slated to graduate by 2026. Bangladesh’s pharmaceutical industry has played a critical role in this possible graduation. Exploring this connection, a new working paper from the Boston University Global Development Policy Center demonstrates the […]
Bangladesh is one of the few Least Developed Countries (LDCs) that has been able to gain a foothold in the global medicines market, which is characterized by significantly high entry barriers compared to other traded goods. Policies implemented by the Bangladesh government have strengthened its pharmaceutical sector, but to what extent would Bangladesh have been […]
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and growing climate crisis, it is becoming increasingly apparent that there is an unresolved tension between the network of rules that make up the global trading system, and the individual members of that system. The new book by Rachel Thrasher, Constraining Development: the Shrinking Policy Space in the […]
Despite being a 100-year-old medicine, insulin remains inaccessible to millions around the world, owing to limited availability and high cost. Indeed, insulin is manufactured in just 20 countries worldwide, meaning there are 170 countries who are import-dependent for insulin. This limited physical availability of various forms of insulin, and the high cost of what is […]
By Katie Gallogly-Swan The debt crisis is far from over in the Global South. While international capital has partially returned to developing and emerging economies, in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) debt service is impeding crisis response as third waves of COVID-19 devastate recovery efforts and exacerbate scarring to economies already squeezed by severe […]
By Natalia Marino On Thursday, June 10, the Boston University Global Development Policy Center hosted a webinar to discuss a new working paper analyzing the proposed EU-MERCOSUR free trade agreement (FTA), which has yet to take effect, but would represent the largest trade deal for both blocs in terms of number of citizens involved. Moderated […]
By Rachel Thrasher As a recent working paper by Michael Palmedo shows, countries that have enacted data exclusivity into their intellectual property laws have faced increased pharmaceutical import prices over the past 20 years: Data exclusivity is a form of intellectual property protection that applies specifically to data from pharmaceutical clinical trials. While innovator firms […]
The EU-MERCOSUR free trade agreement (FTA) has yet to take effect, but would represent the largest trade deal for both blocs in terms of number of citizens involved. While previous studies have made projections for the FTA’s impacts, none of the past projections have taken adverse trends in employment, wage inequality and productivity growth among […]
The world economy is still reeling from the COVID-19 shock and the subsequent restrictions to social and economic activity. While in the developed world governments have been able to mobilize a massive arsenal of monetary and fiscal measures to prop up their economies, estimated at between 20 and 25 percent of their GDP, the poorest […]
By Katie Gallogly-Swan The world economy is still reeling from the COVID-19 shock and the subsequent restrictions to social and economic activity. While in the developed world, governments have been able to mobilize a massive arsenal of monetary and fiscal measures to prop up their economies, estimated at between 20 and 25 percent of their […]