Health as a global public good and the impacts of avian influenza on the Turkish economy

ABSTRACTHEALTH AS A GLOBAL PUBLIC GOOD AND THE IMPACTS OF AVIANINFLUENZA ON THE TURKISH ECONOMYMehmet Oğuz ARSLANPublic Finance Major BranchGraduate School of Social Sciences, Anadolu University, October 2006.Advisor: Prof. Dr. Nezih VARCANThe increasing globalization process since early 1990?s has introduced global publicgoods as a new and important concept to the public finance literature. It is widelyaccepted that fighting against communicable diseases, preventing environmentaldegradation, providing peace and security, etc. are global public goods, shortly namedas health, environment, peace and security and so on. However, due to the nonexistenceof an international entity equivalent to the institution of the state, the production and thefinancing of global public goods have been becoming inadequate. Therefore, it is statedthat coordination and cooperation efforts among the states and other actors must beincreased. Among all the global public goods, health has a practical importance to putthe efforts of global coordination and cooperation in practice. For 20 years, theworldwide spread of HIV/AIDS and the emergence of new communicable disesaseswhich have strong pandemic potential like SARS and avian influenza in recent yearsindicate the severity of global coordination and cooperation efforts for health.Furthermore, avian influenza cases in Turkey prove that health good is vital for humanbeing not only for preventing life losses but also for limiting economic welfare losses.Key Words: Public Goods, Global Public Goods, Public Health, Avian Influenza