2014 Shaping the Future of New York Fridays: 11:00-1:45 Boylan Hall, 2231

In The Body Economic, David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu do a great job showing the connection between bad economic conditions, government policies and public health. Besides for suicides rising in bad times, I would never think that public health would be so correlated with the economy. The graphs on page 9, one showing state income per capita from 1927 to 1937 and the other showing trends in death rates from 1927 to 1937, surprise me, as to how similar they are, more or less rising and falling in the same time periods. But what I found important was that the authors not only explained why a bad economy could lead to less-deaths, but also made it a point to address all the other variables that could have led to the death rates declining as well. Stuckler and Basu look to see if the falling death rate is consistent with previous trends. They even say, “During the Great Depression, most of the changes in death rates apparently weren’t being caused by the economic downturn itself.” However, due to the epidemiological transition, less people died from infectious diseases like pneumonia, but more from non-infectious ones. The depression also correlates with less road deaths because less people are driving, and it also hit around the time of prohibition. There are always so many different factors to account for in scientific research, and I’m glad the authors account for them. Additionally, as they do, it’s great to draw parallels between the Great Depression and more recent economic problems, because this will surely aid us in getting to the roots of the problems and fixing them.

Having taken economics, I’m used to hearing different arguments for why differing policies work better. Each side can show you really convincing supply and demand curves that make a lot of sense, and you often end up not sure which side of the fence makes more sense economically.

However, Stuckler and Basu depart from just academic hypothesis in their book. They provide the reader with real-life examples and natural experiments throughout history to prove their points. The style of the book makes for a very reassuring read in the information and ideas presented. The authors do a great job in providing substance and evidence to field which, at other times, leaves us wanting to know more.

I also think that the usage of real life people throughout the chapter helps to add a more human element to the book. All to often, economics dehumanizes in an attempt to study the science of money. Reframing our perspective on economics, especially when it concerns healthcare, is very valuable.

Josh Setton

I found Part I of Stuckler and Basu’s The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills to be clear, informative and interesting. At its core lay several important ideas that I had never heard before, and if I did, I had not properly understood them. For example, the idea that public health does not have to suffer even though the economy is suffering- if a government chooses to continue or increase spending on public health, its people will be better cared for and the economy can bounce back. What helped me understand this concept the was the authors’ distinction between personal debt and government debt. When I hear the word “debt”, I assume that the most important and effective course of action would be one that decreases spending immediately, in an effort to build up savings and avoid slipping further into debt. But the economist understands that there is a fundamental difference between government debt and personal debt, and that spending on social projects is essential in protecting the people during an economic crisis. “What the Great Depression shows us is that even the worst economic catastrophe need not cause people’s health to suffer, if politicians take the right steps to protect people’s health.”