Talk: The Economics of Breastfeeding and the Market for Mothers' Milk
Dr. JULIE SMITH from the Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, will present a talk on "The Economics of Breastfeeding and the Market for Mothers' Milk."
Breast milk fits the criteria designated for inclusion in the System of National Accounts (SNA) but typically goes uncounted. What are the implications of measuring and valuing it? The political economy of breast milk touches on a variety of important policy issues including child health, the effects of welfare reform in the United States (which reduced breastfeeding), pesticide use (among some Native Americans with high fish consumption breast milk registers high in toxics)and World Trade Organization policies (which promote the sale of infant formula as an alternative to breast milk).
Julie Smith is a leading international scholar in health economics and public finance. She was formerly a senior economist in Australian and New Zealand treasuries, a Visiting Fellow in the Economics Program at the Research School of Social Sciences and a postdoctoral fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health. She has published on public finance and health issues in journals across several disciplines, with a strong interest in public policy. She has published two books on tax policy and is currently writing a book on the economics of mothers???½??½ milk.
This talk is sponsored by the Department of Economics, the Department of Resource Economics, and the Center for Research on Families at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.