Ex-Ante vs Ex-Post?

I am really glad you asked, because I am reading a book called The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It. In the sections I read this weekend the author Paul Collier refreshed my memory.

Ex-Post is Latin for "after the fact". In models where there is uncertainty that is resolved during the course of events, the ex post values (e.g. of expected gain) are those that are calculated after the uncertainty has been resolved.
Ex-Ante is Latin for "beforehand". In models where there is uncertainty that is resolved during the course of events, the ex antes values (e.g. of expected gain) are those that are calculated in advance of the resolution of uncertainty.

In the context of aid ex-ante policy conditionality was traditionally favored over ex-post conditionality. This meant that aid was conditioned upon the promise of governments making governance changes, as opposed to aid that was delivered after the government made the changes (i.e. after the uncertainty had been resolved.)

After an inquiry from my boss this morning I wrote the aforementioned. Turns out she asked to see if it would be worth going to an event this Friday on funding models for neglected diseases.

So what does that mean in context of funding models for development of drugs to treat neglected diseases? Since the event invitation says they are advocating ex-ante mechanisms my guess is that Dr. Paul Herrling will tell us that funding for neglected diseases after the uncertainty has been resolved is not practical. This is because traditional pharmaceutical models finance the development of those drugs from the expectation of sales of that drug. There are a number of reasons but Dr. Herrling will probably tell us this is because neglected diseases are neglected because the market to fund the development of drugs for these diseases is too small to justify the cost of their development. Without the expectation of profits to pay for the development of the drugs, they won’t be researched. This is why ex-post funding models fail to provide funding for neglected diseases.

Dr. Herrling will instead say that the successful development of drugs for neglected diseases has to be funded upfront. This could be a boon to our message because it essentially says that someone/thing(e.g. the U.S. government) needs to provide the funding for the development of drugs to treat neglected diseases upfront.

We will see since I am going to the event.