23. UNAIDS. Country profile: Thailand. Available at: http://www.unaids.org/en/regionscountries/countries/thailand/
“Thailand’s New Condom Crusade.” 2010. Bulletin of the World Health Organization v88(6):404–5. Available at: http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/6/10-010610/en/index.html
24. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2808%2960091-4/fulltext
25. “Thailand’s New Condom Crusade.”
26. Ibid.
27. AusAid, Impact of the Asian Financial Crisis on Health: Indonesia, Thailand, The Philippines, Vietnam, Lao PDR, (AusAid, 2000). See also S. Hopkins, “Economic Stability and Health Status,” in The Impact of the Asian Financial Crisis on the Health Sector in Thailand (AusAid, 2000), p. 6.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Thailand: Activists Want Rights of HIV-Positive People Protected,” Aug 10, 2006. Available at: http://www.irinnews.org/printreport.aspx?reportid=60176
28. Source for Figure 3.1: Adapted from ibid.
29. V. Tangcharoensathien, et al. 2000. “Health Impacts of Rapid Economic Changes in Thailand,” Social Science & Medicine v51:789–807.
In 2001, the Thai Working Group on HIV/AIDS estimated that 4,000 children were born infected with HIV, with the disease transmitted to them from their mothers. With the effective use of drugs, nevirapine, this transmission is avoidable. Hopkins, “Economic Stability and Health Status.”
March 2001 projection of the Thai working group on HIV/AIDS; cited in UNICEF. Chapter 1. Introduction and Summary. Long Term Socio-Economic Impact of HIV/AIDS on Children and Policy Response in Thailand.
In Indonesia, after a similar IMF-imposed 50 percent cut to HIV/AIDS prevention in 1999, there was a 10 percent rise in untreated STDs and HIV in the female population. “Figures on new admissions of abandoned children (under five and older) from the Social Welfare Department showed an increasing trend during the crisis,” cited in Tangcharoensathien, et al. “Health Impacts of Rapid Economic Changes in Thailand.”
30. S. Aungkulanon, M. McCarron, J. Lertiendumrong, S. J. Olsen, K. Bundhamcharoen. 2012. “Infectious Disease Mortality Rates, Thailand, 1958–2009,” Emerg Infectious Diseases v18(11). Available at: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/11/12-0637_article.htm
31. Hopkins, “Economic Stability and Health Status”; “Thailand’s New Condom Crusade.”
32. Y. J. Han, S. W. Lee, Y. S. Jang, D. J. Kim, S. W. Lee, Infant and Perinatal Mortality Rates of Korea in 1999 and 2000 (Seoul: Korea Institute for Health and Social Welfare, 2002).
C. Simms and M. Rowson. 2003. “Reassessment of Health Effects if the Indonesian Economic Crisis: Donors Versus the Data,” The Lancet v361:1382–85. Available at: http://mvw.medact.org/content/health/documents/poverty/Simms%20and%20Rowson%20-%20Reassessment%20of%20health%20effects%20Indonesia.pdf; UNDP. Human Development Report 2001 (New York: UNDP). Available at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2001/. Note that Indonesia has since added eight more provinces for a total of thirty-six.
33. Mahani Zainal-Abidin, “Malaysian Economic Recovery Measures: A Response to Crisis Management and for Long-term Economic Sustainability.” Available at http://www.siue.edu/EASTASIA/Mahani_020400.htm
34. Joseph Stiglitz, “What I Learned at the World Economic Crisis,” The New Republic, April 17, 2000.
35. Based on real economic terms, adjusting for currency devaluation. Waters, Saadah, Pradhan, “The Impact of the 1997–1998 East Asian Economic Crisis on Health and Health Care in Indonesia.”
36. D. E. Sanger, “IMF Now Admits Tactics in Indonesia Deepened the Crisis,” New York Times, Jan 14 1998. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/14/business/international-business-imf-now-admits-tactics-in-indonesia-deepened-the-crisis.html
37. S. Kittiprapas, N. Sanderatne, G. Abeysekera, “Financial Instability and Child Well-Being: A Comparative Analysis of the Impact of the Asian Crisis and Social Policy Response in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and South Korea,” UNICEF office for Thailand; Ch. 9 in G. A. Cornia (ed.), Harnessing Globalisation for Children; Hopkins, “Economic Stability and Health Status.”
Waters, Saadah, Pradhan, “The Impact of the 1997–1998 East Asian Economic Crisis on Health and Health Care in Indonesia.”
38. F. Ardiansyah, “Bearing the Consequences of Indonesia’s Fuel Subsidy,” East Asia Forum, May 4, 2012. Available at: http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2012/05/04/26135/
39. E. Kaiser, S. Knight, “Analysis: Aid Recipients Welcome IMF’s Shift on Austerity,” Reuter’s, Oct 14, 2012. Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/14/us-imf-aid-admission-idUSBRE89D0GQ20121014
PART II: THE GREAT RECESSION
Chapter 4: God Bless Iceland
1. Financial crisis; full statement by Iceland’s prime minister Geir Haarde. The Telegraph. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/iceland/3147806/Financial-crisis-Full-statement-by-Icelands-prime-minister-Geir-Haarde.html
2. Cited in H. Felixson, God Bless Iceland (GuðblessiÍsland), 2009.
3. “Iceland: Cracks in the Crust,” The Economist, Dec 11, 2008. Available at: http://www.economist.com/node/12762027?story_id=12762027; IMF Country Report, Iceland, April 2012. Available at: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2012/cr1291.pdf; H. Stewart, et al., “Five Countries That Crashed and Burned in the Credit Crunch Face a Hard Road to Recovery,” The Guardian, Jan 3, 2010. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/03/credit-crunch-iceland-ireland-greece-dubai-spain; “Fighting Recession the Icelandic Way,” Bloomberg, Sept 26, 2012. Available at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-26/is-remedy-for-next-crisis-buried-in-iceland-view-correct-.html
4. Even during World War II the Germans seemed to take little notice of the small island, which had declared itself neutral, until the British invaded the island to prevent it being used as a German base.
5. J. Carlin, “No Wonder Iceland Has the Happiest People on Earth,” The Guardian, May 18, 2008. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/18/iceland; Jaime Díez Medrano, “Map of Happiness,” Banco de datos. Available at: http://www.jdsurvey.net/jds/jdsurveyMaps.jsp?Idioma=I&SeccionTexto=0404&NOID=103
6. G. Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years: History of a Marginal Society (London, 2000).
7. Silla Sigurgeirsdóttir and Robert H. Wade, “Iceland’s Loud No,” Le Monde Diplomatique, Aug 8, 2011. Available at http://mondediplo.com/2011/08/02iceland
8. BBC. 2006. Foreign banks offer best buys. Radio 4, Money Box. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/moneybox/6051276.stm; “Customers Face Anxious Wait Over Fate of Icesave Accounts,” The Guardian, Oct 8, 2008. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/oct/08/banks.savings; Sigurgeirsdóttir and Wade, “Iceland’s Loud No.”
9. World Bank World Development Indicators.
“From Capital Flow Bonanza to Financial Crash,” Vox, Oct 23, 2008. Available at http://www.voxeu.org/article/capital-inflow-bonanza-financial-crash-danger-ahead-emerging-markets
“Better Life Index,” OECD. Available at http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/iceland/
10. H. H. Gissurarson, “Miracle on Iceland,” Wall Street Journal, Jan 29, 2004. Available at: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107533182153814498,00.html. Cited in R. H. Wade, and S. Sigurgeirsdottir. 2011. “Iceland’s Meltdown: The Rise and Fall of International Banking in the North Atlantic.” Revista de EconomiaPolitica v31(5). Available at: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0101-31572011000500001&script=sci_arttext; see also Arthur Laffer, “Overheating Is Not Dangerous,” Morgunblaðið, Reykjavik, Nov 17, 2007.
11. Danske Bank, “Iceland: Geyser Crisis,” 2006; Robert Wade. 2009. “Iceland as Icarus,” Challenge v52(3): 5–33; R. Boyes, Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island (New York, 2009); Speech by Geir Haarde to the 2008 annual meeting of the Central Bank of Iceland. Cited in Robert H. Wade and Silla Sigurgeirsdóttir. 2010. “Lessons from Iceland,” New Left Review v65:5–
29. Available at: http://newleftreview.org/II/65/robert-wade-silla-sigurgeirsdottir-lessons-from-iceland
12. See Felixson, God Bless Iceland.
13. EuroStat 2012 edition. Brussels, European Commission. “Hundreds in Iceland Protest Foreclosures,” Agence France Presse, Oct 1, 2010. Available at: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ ALeqM5ikamLDTVrWkyqkkLOHx8a89nNPQA?docId=CNG.c41a43301a2a0ba462c063759615c08e.ad1
14. “Iceland: Britain’s Unlikely New Enemy,” BBC News, Oct 15, 2008. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7667920.stm
15. Nordic countries did supply Iceland with aid funding to spur recovery. For an analysis of Iceland’s stark rise in inequality, in which 1 percent of the population accrued an additional 10 percentage points of the population’s total income between 2004 and 2007, see S. Olafsson and A. S. Kristjansson. 2011. “Income Inequality in a Bubble Economy—The Case of Iceland 1992–2008.” LIS—Luxembourg Income Study Conference, Inequality and the Status of the Middle Class, Luxembourg June 28–30, 2010. Available at: http://www.lisproject.org/conference/papers/olafsson-kristjansson.pdf; “Iceland Faces Immigrant Exodus,” BBC, Oct 21, 2008. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7680087.stm; L. Veal, “Iceland: Recovering Dubiously from the Crash,” Al Jazeera, Jan 31 2012. Available at: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/01/2012131144757624586.html
16. T. Gylfason, et al., “From Boom to Bust: The Iceland Story.” Ch. 7 in Nordic Countries in Global Crisis: Vulnerability and Resilience (2010), p. 157. Available at: http://www.etla.fi/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/B242.pdf
17. Ibid. Iceland’s inequality rose markedly before the crash. The debt burdens were also disproportionately held. Additionally, 440 families have debts in excess of their assets of USD $400,000 or more. Of Iceland’s 182,000 families, 81,000 have assets below $40,000, whereas 1,400 families have assets of $1.2 million or more.
18. This conclusion was largely based on studies that found national healthcare spending tended to rise as economies grew (J. P. Newhouse. 1977. “Medical-care Expenditure: A Cross-National Survey,” Journal of Human Resources. As a more recent paper explains, “The General Finding Has Been That Income Elasticity Estimates Exceed Unity, Implying That Health Care Is a Luxury Good.” Cited in J. Costa-Font, et al., “Re-visiting the Healthcare Luxury Good Hypothesis: Aggregation, Precision, and Publication Biases?” HEDG Working Paper 09/02, 2009. Available at: http://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/herc/wp/09_02.pdf. The health minister was publicly outspoken about the need to bolster health systems. In his resignation, he noted that he could not follow the government stance to continue the negotiation process to repay IceSave and the large fiscal consolidation that would result.
19. Personal communication with D. Stuckler, European Health Forum at Gastein, Austria, 2009.
20. In Europe we estimated the defense multiplier was negative. See A. Reeves, S. Basu, M. McKee, C. Meissner, D. Stuckler. In press. “Does Investment in the Health Sector Promote or Inhibit Economic Growth?” Health Policy.
21. The last time a referendum had been called in Iceland was in 1944, when Iceland voted in de pen dence from Denmark.
22. Iris Erlingsdottir, “Iceland Is Burning,” Huffington Post, Jan 20, 2009. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/iris-lee/iceland-is-burning_b_159552.html
23. Ibid.
24. This vote should not be taken to indicate that all Icelanders agreed, particularly since not all voters turned out to the referendum. There had previously been a divisive debate about whether to repay IceSave’s loans and shoulder the debt and austerity that would result. In this process, IMF economists issued conflicting messages to the Icelandic media: at times arguing not to socialize private debt, but also advising on its repayment and associated fiscal consolidation.
25. Friedman led the push for Central Bank Independence, to divorce economic decision-making about interest rates and the money supply from democratic accountability.
26. Wade and Sigurgeirsdóttir, “Lessons from Iceland.”
27. Sigurgeirsdóttir and Wade, “Iceland’s Loud No.”
28. See D. Stuckler, C. Meissner, L. King. 2008. “Can a Bank Crisis Break Your Heart?” Globalization & Health v4(1). Available at: http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/4/1/1. See G. R. Gudjonsdottir, et al. 2012. “Immediate Surge in Female Visits to the Cardiac Emergency Department Following the Economic Collapse in Iceland: An Observational Study,” Emerg Med J v29:694–98.
29. S. Sigurkarlsson, et al. 2011. “Prevalence of Respiratory Symptoms and Use of Asthma Drugs Are Increasing Among Young Adult Icelanders,” Laeknabladid v97(9): 463–6 7. H. K. Carlsen, et al. 2012. “A Survey of Early Health Effects of the Eyjafj allajokull 2010 Eruption in Iceland: A Population-based Study,” BMJ Open v2:e000343.
30. A. Kleinman, The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition (New York, 1988).
31. C. McClure, et al. 2013. “Increase in Female Depressive Symptoms Following the 2008 Financial Crisis in Iceland: A Prospective Cohort Study.” Forthcoming.
32. J. Helliwell, R. Layard, J. Sachs. World Happiness Report (New York, 2012). See Figure 2.11, average positive affect by country, based on the GWP 05–11. One explanation that has been proposed is that during the crisis Iceland experienced a rising degree of political openness. Discussion and debate, previously suppressed during the boom years, emerged, increasing people’s happiness and life satisfaction.
33. T. L. Asgeirsdottir, et al. “Are Recessions Good for Your Health Behaviors? Impacts of the Economic Crisis in Iceland.” Working Paper 18233. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 2012.
34. D. Batty, “McDonald’s to Quit Iceland as Big Mac Costs Rise,” The Guardian, Oct 27 1999. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/27/mcdonalds-to-quit-iceland; C. Forelle, “Fishing Industry Aids Iceland’s Recovery,” Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2012. Available at: http://live.wsj.com/video/fishing-industry-aids-iceland-recovery/E1ED2AC5-D98B-4760-844E-67F8BA64A136.html
35. A member of Parliament from the Independence party has also proposed the plan to privatize the state-alcohol monopoly in early 2009.
36. EuroStat. Statistics. Available at: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/statistics/search_database; P. Gobry, “No, the United States Will Not Go into a Debt Crisis, Not Now, Not Ever,” Forbes, Oct 19, 2012. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2012/10/19/no-the-united-states-will-not-go-into-a-debt-crisis-not-now-not-ever/. Iceland’s rise in social spending was significant even after adjusting for the fall in GDP, as a result of maintaining the automatic stabilizers built into its social protection system.
37. OECD. Economic Survey of Iceland, 2011. Available at: https://community.oecd.org/docs/DOC-27221/diff?secondVersionNumber=2
38. EuroStat. Statistics. Available at: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/statistics/search_database; “Fighting Recession the Icelandic Way,” Bloomberg.
This corresponded to a series of suicides that garnered headlines in Spain. See, for example, M. Bennett-Smith, “4th Eviction-Motivated Suicide Rocks Indebted Spain; Protesters Shout Eviction Is ‘Murder’,” Huffington Post, Feb 15, 2013. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/15/4th-eviction-suicide-spain_n_2697192.html; IMF Country Report No. 12/89, April 2012, 2012 Article IV Consultation and First Post-Program Monitoring Discussion. See p. 6, Box 1: Safeguarding Iceland’s social welfare system. Available at: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2012/cr1289.pdf. The social democratic party government had raised the minimum income guarantee in 2007/2008 to protect the most vulnerable group of retired persons, which came into effect in 2008/2009. Such programs were planned prior to the crisis and upheld during it. See Welfare Watch, The Welfare Watch Report to the Althingi. [English translation]. Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Security, Iceland, Jan 2010. Available at: http://eng.velferdarraduneyti.is/media/velferdarvakt09/29042010The-Welfare-Watch_Report-to-the-Althingi.pdf
39. For an analysis of how Iceland’s social capital helped promote resilience, see K. Growiecz, “Social Capital During the Financial Crisis. The Case of Iceland.” 2011. Available at: https://renewal.hi.is/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/KatarzynaSocial-Capital-during-Financial-Crisis-Growiec.pdf; OECD, Society at a Glance 2011: OECD Social Indicators. Available at: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/soc_glance-2011-en/06/01/index.html?contentType=&itemId=/content/chapter/ soc_glance-2011-16-en&containerItemId=/content/serial/19991290&accessItemIds=/content/book/soc_glance-2011-en&mimeType=text/html
40. EDA, Oct 12, 2009. Film review. Available at: http://www.economicdisasterarea.com/index.php/features/eda-film-review-god-bless-iceland-not-enough-mustard/
41. S. Lyall, “A Bruised Iceland Heals amid Europe’s Malaise,” New York Times, July 8, 2012. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/world/europe/icelands-economy-is-mending-amid-europes-malaise.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 “Fighting Recession the Icelandic Way,” Bloomberg. Fitch upgraded Iceland’s sovereign rating from BBB- to BB+. See also BBC, “Iceland Debt ‘Safe to Invest’ After Ratings Upgrade,” Feb 2012. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17075011
42. As the IMF further explained, rather than through austerity, fiscal adjustment was achieved by introducing greater taxes on the wealthy and focusing cuts outside of social welfare programs: “A key post crisis objective of the Icelandic authorities was to preserve the social welfare system in the face of the fiscal consolidation needed to put public finances on a sustainable path. With unemployment rising fast and real wages plummeting, it was recognized early on that the social impact of the crisis would be significant. Thus, in designing the fiscal consolidation, the authorities sought to protect vulnerable groups, notably by introducing a more progressive income tax, increasing only the upper VAT rate, and focusing expenditure cuts on areas where efficiency gains could be made—thereby creating space to preserve social benefits.” IMF, “Iceland: Ex Post Evaluation of Exceptional Access Under the 2008 Stand-By Arrangement,” IMF Country Report No 12/91, 2012. Available at: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2012/cr1291.pdf; the IMF further explained that “the social impact can be eased in the face of fiscal consolidation following a severe crisis by cutting expenditures without compromising welfare benefits.”
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