How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place

This book cuts the political BS and gets right to the point of how we can make the world better. Refreshing to read.

Bought it because of the Peterson recommendation - fantastic book, read it in a day - quick read filled with the findings of UN and scientist studies on the economic and fiscal outcomes of where we are and should be spending money. They interesting exercise.

Jordan Peterson recommended this book, so I bought a copy, the most affordable I could find. The insights shared in this book are priceless. Though we still need to put a number value on top of every irreplaceable human life. Not bad for a book trying to think of ways to improve the human world.

How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place (2013) by Bjorn Lomborg is a short summary of The Copenhagen Consensus project that got experts in various areas to work out the cost benefit ratios of various forms of aid and then got a panel of economists including multiple Nobel Prize winners to judge them. It's a great idea and remarkable because cost benefit analysis seems to have been little used when thinking about aid spending.The book is not a good read. The solutions are presented, the conclusion described and then five Nobel Prize winning economists present their ideas. Then the cost benefit ratios for all the options are briefly described. The book is a collection of essays with the most important parts being the cost benefit ratios that are essentially just presented.The best options for spending have been, in order, micronutrients for children, fighting malaria, immunisation, deworming, fighting TB and R & D spending on agriculture.The idea behind the Copenhagen Consensus is a really good one and the basic idea, that of applying standard accounting and economics practices to evaluating aid is a really valuable contribution. Micronutrient spending seems to have benefited from people reading the conclusion.The weaknesses of the approach are in the accuracy of the cost benefit analysis and trying to apply it to things like reducing corruption and increasing free trade. These things would increase wealth substantially but are very difficult to achieve in practice.The book may be worth having as a reference but it's not nearly as interesting or as well put together as Lomborg's other books.

If you aren't truly interested in numbers, innovation, and economics, then I wouldn't buy this book.

I've been in and around development for 44 years, including 5 as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Latin America and 13 more working with NGOs in 60 developing countries. I look for forward to each Copenhagen Consensus report. Clear, concise and practical....things almost always missing from others in the development industry (and development is an industry), like USAID, World Bank, IMF, UN etc. Alleviating or even ending world poverty isn't rocket science and Lomborg and company show us how and where an affordable amount of money can be spent to get the best results.

I bought this after listening to Jordan Peterson on YouTube make a reference to how much he liked the Author. Jordan Peterson and the Author obviously have a lot more brain power than I do. I found parts of it interesting, the ideas and calculations are a bit daunting at times. More importantly, I found them working on problems at such a high level, making predictions on dollars spent and payback into the future that while impressive, have nothing to do with the real world we live in. Their prioritization of the world's problems is interesting, the money they say we need has always been there but the execution is what is lacking. The crooks rip off the money set aside to help the poor in backward countries which keeps the people poor. Are there ideas actionable? In an ideal world.

Amazing book - fun to read !

I think this book is a great read for anyone who is interested in getting to the truth in terms of the complexity of issues discussed. I feel like I've come a way with a better understanding of the complexity of these issues.

Really interesting book. Clear and concise.

Es handelt sich hier um eine Zusammenfassung verschiedener Expertenartikel, die leider in der Güte und wissenschaftlichen Fundiertheit stark variieren. Manche Texte wirken stark nahezu an den Fingern herbeigezogen oder scheinen die völlig unpassende Antworten auf die vom Autor gestellte Frage zu geben.Ein echte Freude dagegen war da der Text von Nancy Stockey, die mit mathematischer Präzision und radikaler Ehrlichkeit und Sprache die beste Verteidigung ihres Rankings von Unternehmungen zur Weltverbesserung abgibt.

Gute Bücher laden uns dazu ein unserer Perspektive zu wechseln und lehren uns hierbei, dass es mehr als den einen "richtigen" Weg gibt und dass unser Weg weder der einzige, noch der Beste ist.Gute Bücher verwandeln Emotionen in Rationalitäten und Intutionen in Werte.

It was an interesting concept for a book but it didn't have any real detailed plans or theories. It was just vague concepts such as "donate x number of dollars to food production". I was hoping for something more in depth.