Clark Center Forum

An executive order by President Trump in late June has suspended a range of visas for skilled workers. We invited our panel to express their views on the potential impact of the visa ban on US leadership in science and innovation; on the attractiveness of US universities for foreign students; and on the location of […] 

 

This week’s IGM European Economic Experts Panel statements on The Search for a Vaccine



 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements on The Search for a Vaccine. 

James J. Stock et al In the early stages of the pandemic, testing targeted individuals whose symptoms and/or jobs placed them at a high presumed risk of infection. This potentially results in a high proportion of cases going undetected. In an update of our April paper, we use public data from two Icelandic testing regimes […] 

This week’s IGM European Economic Experts Panel statements:

 

A) Given the social and regulatory pressures to keep prices down for drugs and vaccines to treat Covid-19, the financial incentives for pharmaceutical companies to invest in such products are below the value of the investment to society.

B) Government commitments to pay developers and manufacturers above average costs for an effective vaccine or drug treatments for Covid-19 would accelerate production.

C) Given the positive externalities from vaccination, an effective Covid-19 vaccine should have priority in public healthcare funding even in countries where other diseases cause more death and disability.

  

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:

A) Given the social and regulatory pressures to keep prices down for drugs and vaccines to treat Covid-19, the financial incentives for pharmaceutical companies to invest in such products are below the value of the investment to society.

B) Government commitments to pay developers and manufacturers above average costs for an effective vaccine or drug treatments for Covid-19 would accelerate production.

C) Given the positive externalities from vaccination, an effective Covid-19 vaccine should be mandatory for every US resident (except those with health exceptions, such as infants and people with compromised immunity) with the cost covered by the federal government. 

Anne Case and Angus Deaton America finds itself in the grips of two epidemics, each of which has exposed deep inequalities across races and levels of educational attainment. Between rising “deaths of despair” among working-class whites and higher COVID-19 mortality rates among African-Americans, the stunning secular decline in US life expectancy will continue. Read more> 

This is the third 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 03 appears here on […] 

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 […]