Clark Center Forum

Lubos Pastor Governments around the world are spending mightily to deal with the fallout of the COVID-19 crisis. When the dust settles, the burden of public debt will be much heavier than it is today. Some countries’ debt-to-GDP ratios are likely to grow by more than 20%. How will policymakers deal with this mountain of […] 

Cevat Giray Aksoy, Barry Eichengreen, Orkun Saka It is argued that COVID-19 will reverse the ongoing trend of challenging the value of science and the integrity of scientists. This column shows that exposure to epidemics in one’s country of residence during the ‘impressionable years’ of ages 18 to 25 has no impact on confidence in […] 

Charles Wyplosz Within a few days of the publication of the first Vox eBook on Covid-19, the authorities came up with a raft of decisions that were coherent with the economists’ analyses. But there is a risk that moral hazard considerations derail the policy responses. This column, taken from the second Covid-19 eBook, argues that […] 

Lucrezia Reichlin The Franco-German proposal for a COVID-19 recovery fund is not quite the “Hamiltonian moment” that some have claimed. But, by reshaping the debate on risk mutualization and the benefits of transfers, it could set the stage for one. Read more> 

This is the second round of the FiveThirtyEight/IGM COVID-19 Economic Outlook survey. This survey series is overseen by Professors Allan Timmermann and Jonathan Wright. The list of experts answering the questions is identified in the post along with the responses. Individual responses are anonymous. A simple summary of responses of Round 02 appears here on […] 

Alberto Alesina, a founding member of the IGM economic experts panel, passed away in May 2020 – a sad loss for the whole research community. As the remembrances posted by the IGM directors on our website illustrate, Alberto was a fantastic economist, a wonderful person and a friend to many of the panelists.

 

Alberto Alesina, a founding member of the IGM economic experts panel, passed away in May 2020 – a sad loss for the whole research community. As the remembrances posted by the IGM directors on our website illustrate, Alberto was a fantastic economist, a wonderful person and a friend to many of the panelists.

 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements on The Prices of Medical Supplies. 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:

A) Clearing the market for surgical face masks using prices is detrimental to the public good.

B) Laws to prevent high prices for essential goods in short supply in a crisis would raise social welfare.

C) Governments should buy essential medical supplies at what would have been the market price and redistribute according to need rather than ability to pay.

  

Alberto Alesina, a founding member of the IGM economic experts panel, passed away over the weekend—a sad loss for the whole research community. Alberto was a fantastic economist, a wonderful person and a friend to many of the panelists. The IGM directors are collecting a few remembrances that we will be posting from today.