Douglass C. North, Ph.D., the Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts & Sciences and a co-recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, joins a panel of distinguished economists recently in Denmark for the “Copenhagen Consensus,” an intensive forum exploring the costs and benefits of ongoing efforts to address critical global challenges such as war, famine and disease. A package of measures to control HIV/AIDS was identified by participants as the challenge most likely to yield the greatest return on global relief fund investments. Other “very good” investments cited were interventions aimed at fighting malnutrition, actions to reduce trade barriers and eliminate agricultural subsidies and efforts to control malaria. “Finding a way to end warfare is probably the most important challenge facing mankind, but that’s a problem for which there is no easy solution,” North said. “On the other hand, we know how to provide people with clean drinking water. We have the medical tools to tackle devastating diseases such as malaria. These problems are solvable — that’s where we should be focusing our resources.”