The pandemic will leave the rich world deep in debt, and force some hard choices
From The Economist, April 23rd, 2020 In “how to pay for the war”, a pamphlet published in 1940, John Maynard Keynes looked back on the way that the British government had, in the late 1910s, tried to pay off enormous quantities of debt with a combination of higher taxes and inflation. Wages had not kept up with…
Flatten the Curve of Infection and the Curve of Recession at the Same Time
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas Foreign Affairs, March 26, 2020 After wasting nearly three months watching the pandemic crisis from afar, Americans awoke to a new reality in the last two weeks: no one is spared. The world is engaged in a momentous battle against an invisible enemy. Unchecked, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19,…
Throughout history, pandemics have had profound economic effects
From The Economist, March 12, 2020 Long-run economic effects are not always dreadful Pandemics are the inevitable attendants of economic progress. Interconnected trade networks and teeming cities have made societies both richer and more vulnerable, from the empires of antiquity to the integrated global economy of the present. The effects of covid-19 will be very different from…
Follow My Blog
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
i-ideas 