Privileging Sciences: Vaccine Endorsement at the World Health Organization

• In Event: International Political Economy of Technological Change

Abstract

International organizations (IOs) can use scientific evaluation to channel the behavior of market-oriented actors for IOs’ institutional goals. While previous research acknowledges the role of IOs as an epistemic community in shaping cooperation by states, the same logic may not apply to profit-driven actors. Investigating the case of vaccine endorsement by the World Health Organization (WHO), we argue that IOs can use vaccine prequalification—a procedure for procurement in the United Nations—to induce firms’ R&D investment in vaccines targeting low-income countries, which are historically underinvested due to the geographic mismatch in the demand and supply of vaccines. Empirically, we find that vaccines targeting diseases with more unequal geographic distribution are more likely to receive priority in WHO’s prequalification procedure. Moreover, the WHO’s prioritization can lead to more clinical trials, a measure of firms’ investment in vaccine R&D. This paper reveals the market implications of scientific evaluation by IOs.

Authors

• Mengfan Cheng, New York University

• Zoe Ge, IE University