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19.  Is the provision of global public goods a rewarding investment?

Yes. A very crude estimate indicates that underproviding some select public goods imposes costs to the international community that far exceed the cost to implement known interventions to enhance provision. The costs of underproviding global public goods (costs of inaction) are associated with the stress imposed at many levels. A malprovided trade regime imposes economic efficiency losses on industrial and developing countries alike. Underproviding communicable disease control leads to pandemics like HIV/AIDS.

Preliminary estimates of the comparison between the costs of inaction and the costs of taking corrective action to enhance the provision of global public goods show that in some cases, the costs of inaction reach up to 10 times the cost of corrective action.

[For more on this issue, refer to the assessment chapter by Conceicao.]

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