?The world needs more Covid vaccines. Time to make some!

Even as the struggle against vaccine hesitancy and increasingly infectious variants continues, on a global level, demand for the vaccines that provide better immunity to Covid-19 has not been met.

One solution may be found in failure: CureVac, a German company that joined the rush of firms creating inoculants in 2020 found out in June that its product is only 47% effective against the coronavirus, compared to 90% or higher in vaccines made by Pfizer or Moderna.

Without resolute measures to address this growing divide, COVID?19 will continue to claim lives and destroy jobs, inflicting lasting damage to investment, productivity, and growth in the most vulnerable countries. The pandemic will further disrupt the lives of the most vulnerable, and countries will see a rise in extreme poverty and malnutrition, shattering all hope of attaining the Sustainable Development Goals.

Narrowing the pandemic divide thus requires collective action to boost access to vaccines, secure critical financing, and accelerate the transition to a greener, digital, and more inclusive world.

Securing finance

As a result of the pandemic, debt and deficits have dramatically increased from already historically high levels. Average overall fiscal deficits as a share of GDP in 2021 have reached 9.9 percent for advanced economies, 7.1 percent for emerging market economies, and 5.2 percent for low-income developing countries. Global government debt...

The FRED graph above shows the quarterly evolution of U.S. net exports of technology, from Q1 1967 to Q1 2021. Net exports of technology are measured as royalties and license fees received minus royalties and license fees paid during this period (as a percentage of GDP).

The U.S. has always been a net exporter of technology and, hence, a net receiver of royalty payments. And net exports as a share of GDP have steadily increased from 0.12% in Q1 1985 to 0.48% in Q3 2011—an increase of 300%! But after 2011, there’s been a slow decline, reaching 0.28% in Q1 2021 (its lowest level since Q1 2002). What’s caused this decline?

The FRED graph below shows, separately, exports of technology in terms of royalties received and imports of technology in terms of royalties paid (again, as a percentage of GDP). While U.S. technology exports have steadily fallen from 0.70% in Q3 2011 to 0.51% in Q1 2021, imports have remained fairly stable. Hence, the decline in net...