“In Gabon per capita GDP is a third compared to the US one, but at the same the infant mortality rate in the African country is 5% live births while in the US the same rate is ten times lower since it amounts to 5 ‰ live births – explains Tito Boeri, scientific director of TEF none other than the chairman of the Italian National Institute for Social Security (INPS) -. Yet, there are deep disparities in life expectancy within the US as well: indeed, people living in rural areas (most of them gave their support to the election of Trump) may have a life expectancy lower up to 30 years compared to people living in big cities both in the East or the West Coast”.
In order to have a clear idea of what is going on in the “new deal” of the Trump’s United States, one of the most eminent guests at the Trento Economics Festival will be Jonathan Gruber, Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Director of the Health Care Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBR), President of the American Society of Health Economists, as well as main advisor and technical consultant to the Obama Administration for the Health Care Reform. His speech in Trento on June 3rd will focus on “Obamacare: the past, the present and the future”.
Yet, since US polls in 2016 are still a surprise for the whole world, Thomas Ferguson, Professor at the University of Massachusetts in Boston and Director of Research at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, in his lecture at the TEF on June 3rd will investigate the unexpected political coalition that brought Trump at the White House with a Congress dominated by Republicans.
Finally, on June 4th a special address by Kiersten Strombotne, Health Economist at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) in Washington D.C., will pay attention to one of American most worrying concern: obesity.
A Body Mass Index (BMI) higher than 30 – which means obesity – is one of biggest causes of death in the US and recent trends are going worse since obesity is growing faster among young people with huge costs for healthcare.
