Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Susan Erikson, "Investable! When Pandemic Risk Meets Speculative Finance" (MIT Press, 2025)
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Susan Erikson
Date: September 20, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode dives into Dr. Susan Erikson’s new book, Investable! When Pandemic Risk Meets Speculative Finance (MIT Press, 2025). Dr. Erikson and host Dr. Miranda Melcher unpack the rise of pandemic bonds—complicated financial instruments introduced to manage risk during health emergencies. The conversation reveals how these bonds, while seemingly technical, have profound real-world impacts on healthcare, public policy, and vulnerable populations. The episode critically examines the intersection between aid, global health, financial incentives, and the politics behind distributing care during pandemics.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Author Background and Motivation for the Book

[02:51]

• Dr. Erikson is an anthropologist specializing in the political economy of health, with experience in Germany and Sierra Leone.
• Her research explores how money, data, and technology function as artifacts of governance and shape health outcomes.
• She became interested in the concept of "greed as an organizing principle," questioning why human cooperation is now driven by financial incentives instead of political efforts to curb greed.
• The catalyst for the book was hearing about catastrophe bonds at a university talk, which she found morally troubling. This idea evolved into pandemic (and Ebola) bonds, financializing the risk and response to pandemics.

Quote:

"I was sitting there imagining the selling off of units of human suffering to rich people who would buy them for a chance to make money."
— Dr. Susan Erikson [05:44]

2. What Are Pandemic (Catastrophe) Bonds?

[07:28]

• Pandemic bonds were steered by the World Bank to address poor preparation and funding shortcomings for pandemics, especially in poorer countries.
• Structured in two tranches:
  • Tranche A: 11.5% annual interest, lower risk
  • Tranche B: 14% annual interest, higher risk
• Bonds would pay high interest unless a pandemic occurred and predefined criteria (“triggers”) were met, in which case the invested money would be deployed for aid.
• When COVID-19 hit, the bonds unlocked $132 million across 64 countries (about $3 million per country), a trivial amount during a global emergency.
• A critical issue: the models underpinning the bonds were designed to calculate investor risk/loss, not public health outcomes.

Quote:

"They were modeling for investor loss, not for public health success."
— Dr. Susan Erikson [09:34]

3. From Idea to Implementation

[10:57]

• Jim Yong Kim, then President of the World Bank, was pivotal in moving the idea from concept to reality.
• Kim, an anthropologist and physician, saw the bonds as a solution to the criticism of slow Ebola response but ultimately prioritized financial innovation over robust public health systems.
• Erikson believes personality and leadership were decisive in the bond’s creation.

Quote:

"I conclude my chapter on him... he squandered what I saw as a rare opportunity to promote primary care systems around the world... instead, he very literally made pandemics investible."
— Dr. Susan Erikson [12:07]

4. Design Flaws: Criteria and Triggers

[14:44]

• To release funds, strict and controversial triggers had to be met:
  • At least 12 weeks must pass (delay before aid could be triggered)
  • Outbreak must cross borders (multi-country spread)
  • Minimum number of deaths
  • At least one affected country had to be a designated poor country
  • Predefined growth rates of infection
• The 12-week delay and death requirements were especially criticized as impractically insensitive to on-the-ground reality.

Quote:

"In the case of infectious disease, that's a very long time... the beginning of those 12 weeks, you might have an opportunity to actually work on contagion... but three months—that’s... way late."
— Dr. Susan Erikson [15:40]

5. Data, Black Boxes, and Public Knowledge

[19:56]

• The rules and criteria were set out in a 386-page prospectus for transparency with potential investors—but few outside financial circles understood or saw it.
• Science journalists and some investors saw the flaws and either criticized or declined to participate.
• Public knowledge remained limited due to the complexity and sheer volume of the documentation.

Quote:

"They were certainly known in the financial world. They were also a reason why some investors did not invest. And I talked to those folks, too..."
— Dr. Susan Erikson [21:27]

6. Anthropological Perspective: Data Collection in Crisis

[22:25]

• Erikson draws on her extensive fieldwork in Sierra Leone, describing the immense challenges of data collection (e.g., unreliable roads, enumerators traveling on motorcycle in arduous conditions).
• She notes the disconnect between the World Bank’s data demands and the realities of emergency healthcare in under-resourced countries.

Quote:

"The minute the World Bank made data in poor countries the criteria for triggering millions of dollars, then I felt it very personally..."
— Dr. Susan Erikson [23:19]

7. Who Invested and What Happened?

[25:11]

• Investors: Primarily institutional—pension funds, hedge funds, specialized catastrophe bond traders, and asset managers; 26 original investors, with active secondary trading afterward.
• Outcomes:
  • Class A: Investors received moderate returns (~3% annually)
  • Class B: Higher-risk investors lost their entire investment

8. The Future of Pandemic Bonds

[27:39]

• The World Bank considered a “Pandemic Bond 2.0” but cancelled their plans after public criticism soared during COVID-19.
• Industry insiders suggest similar models may resurface with tweaks, as the demand for innovative risk transfer persists. Some are “waiting for people’s memories to fade” to try again.
• Key challenge: persuading rich countries to subsidize investor payouts; appetite for this has shrunk.
• Erikson situates pandemic bonds in the broader historical shift toward financialization and privatization of healthcare, expressing skepticism about a meaningful policy reversal.

Quote:

"Capitalism is insidiously creative in terms of how it comes up for new...ways to make money. And this making money on money...this is a new kind of turn in global economy."
— Dr. Susan Erikson [32:45]

9. What’s Next? Erikson’s Future Work

[33:15]

• Erikson is now researching speculative finance and data modeling around planetary health, particularly wildfire risk and the role of AI.
• She notes widespread public health resistance to confronting finance-driven aid models, emphasizing the need for more anthropological scrutiny.

Quote:

"There needs to be anthropologists, I think, like me, who are interested in saying, okay, first we need to understand these things, and then...figure out...how to do policy differently."
— Dr. Susan Erikson [34:10]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I was sitting there imagining the selling off of units of human suffering to rich people who would buy them for a chance to make money."
  — Dr. Susan Erikson [05:44]

• "They were modeling for investor loss, not for public health success."
  — Dr. Susan Erikson [09:34]

• "I conclude my chapter on him... he squandered what I saw as a rare opportunity to promote primary care systems."
  — Dr. Susan Erikson [12:07]

• "In the case of infectious disease, that's a very long time... three months—that’s... way late."
  — Dr. Susan Erikson [15:40]

• "[The criteria] were a reason why some investors did not invest. And I talked to those folks, too..."
  — Dr. Susan Erikson [21:27]

• "Capitalism is insidiously creative in terms of how it comes up for new with new ways to make money."
  — Dr. Susan Erikson [32:45]

• "There needs to be anthropologists...interested in saying, okay, first we need to understand these things, and then...figure out...how to do policy differently."
  — Dr. Susan Erikson [34:10]

Timestamps for Major Segments

• Introduction and Author Background: [01:35–06:47]
• What Are Pandemic Bonds?: [07:28–10:31]
• From Idea to Implementation & Role of Leadership: [10:31–12:48]
• Were These for Public Health?: [12:48–14:32]
• Criteria and Triggers Deep Dive: [14:32–18:14]
• Data Transparency & Black Box Nature: [19:38–21:44]
• On-the-Ground Data Challenges in Sierra Leone: [22:25–24:44]
• Who Invested & Their Returns/Losses: [25:11–27:30]
• Future of Pandemic Bonds & Global Health Financialization: [27:39–32:57]
• Erikson’s New Research Directions: [33:15–34:42]

Tone and Language

The tone is candid, critical, and often personal. Dr. Erikson combines vivid storytelling from her anthropological fieldwork with sharp political-economic analysis, making complex financial instruments understandable and their ethical stakes vivid for listeners.

Conclusion

This episode offers a richly informed critique of pandemic bonds and their implications for global health, finance, and ethics. Dr. Erikson exposes how high finance increasingly shapes the fate of public health interventions, urging a more critical, anthropologically informed approach in policy and aid. For those interested in global health, disaster finance, or the human consequences of speculative markets, this conversation is both illuminating and provocative.