Question A: Even if tests for Covid-19 are being rationed, there is an urgent need for some random testing to establish baseline levels of the virus to inform any decisions about ending lockdowns.

Question B: Required elements for an economic ‘restart’ after lockdowns include a massive increase in testing capacity (for infections and antibodies) along with a coherent strategy for preventing new outbreaks and reintroducing low-risk/no-risk individuals into public activities.

Question A: A comprehensive policy response to the coronavirus will involve tolerating a very large contraction in economic activity until the spread of infections has dropped significantly.

Question B: Abandoning severe lockdowns at a time when the likelihood of a resurgence in infections remains high will lead to greater total economic damage than sustaining the lockdowns to eliminate the resurgence risk.

Question C: Optimally, the government would invest more than it is currently doing in expanding treatment capacity through steps such as building temporary hospitals, accelerating testing, making more masks and ventilators, and providing financial incentives for the production of a successful vaccine.

Question A: Even if the mortality of COVID-19 proves to be limited (similar to the number of flu deaths in a regular season), it is likely to cause a major recession.

Question B: The economic effects of COVID-19 coming from reduced spending will be larger than those coming from disruptions to supply chains and illness-related workforce reductions.

Question A: Replacing the current US health insurance system (including employer-based health insurance, ACA exchange policies, and Medicaid) with universal ‘Medicare for All’ (mandatory enrollment in a modified version of the existing traditional Medicare program with drug coverage and no cost-sharing of any form, and current Medicare reimbursement rates) funded by federal taxes would lead to improved access to healthcare for a meaningful subset of the population.

Question B: Replacing the current US health insurance system as outlined in a) would lead to longer waiting times for healthcare for a meaningful subset of the population.

Question A: Replacing the current US health insurance system (including employer-based health insurance, ACA exchange policies, and Medicaid) with universal ‘Medicare for All’ (mandatory enrollment in a modified version of the existing traditional Medicare program with drug coverage and no cost-sharing of any form, and current Medicare reimbursement rates) funded by federal taxes would lead to lower aggregate medical debt among patients.

Question B: Replacing the current US health insurance system as outlined in a) would lead to lower aggregate innovation in the pharmaceutical industry.

Question C: Replacing the current US health insurance system as outlined in a) would improve health outcomes for the majority of the population.

Question A: Following the UK election result, the certainty that the country is going to leave the European Union will provide a substantial short-term boost to the UK economy.

Question B: The near certainty that the UK will leave the European Union’s customs union and single market in 2020 offers a sizeable export market opportunity for American business.

A ban on very short-term loans at very high annualized interest rates (aka payday lending) would make most people who use or might use them better off.

Question A: Under current policies on climate change, the associated physical risks (such as those arising from total seasonal rainfall and sea level changes, and increased frequency, severity, and correlation of extreme weather events) will be at most a very small factor in monetary policy decisions over the next decade.

Question B: The physical risks associated with climate change under current policies are likely to threaten financial stability over the next decade.

Taking into account the revenues, consumer surplus, purchasing patterns by income, and possible consumer biases, state-run lotteries (such as Powerball and scratch-off games) increase social welfare.

Question A: Randomized control trials are a valuable tool for answering some long unsettled questions in development economics research.

Question B: Randomized control trials are a valuable tool for making significant progress in poverty reduction.

Question A: Rising inequality is straining the health of liberal democracy.

Question B: Enacting more redistributive expenditures and policies would be likely to limit the rise of populism.

Question C:

Governments should allocate more resources to policies that would be likely to limit the rise of populism, even if it means higher public debt or lower public spending in other areas.

Question A: Having companies run to maximize shareholder value creates significant negative externalities for workers and communities.

Question B: Appropriately managed corporations could create significantly greater value than they currently do for a range of stakeholders – including workers, suppliers, customers and community members – with negligible impacts on shareholder value.

Question C: Effective mechanisms for boards of directors to ensure that CEOs act in ways that balance the interests of all stakeholders would be straightforward to introduce.

A substantial source of the value of decentralized private cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, arises from their convenience for use in illegal activities.

Question A: In a case like the US women’s national soccer team where the revenues that they generate and their on-field performance both exceed those of the men’s team, there is no justification for lower pay.

Question B: Fining companies above a certain size that fail to provide the same remuneration to men and women employees performing comparable roles would be an effective way of closing the gender pay gap.

Question A: Mexico's persistent bilateral trade surplus with the United States implies that Mexico is following policies that keep the peso artificially weak against the US dollar.

Question B: The existence of a multi-year trade deficit of Country A with Country B implies that B has successfully tilted the playing field in its favor in terms of such policies as tariffs, non-tariff barriers, and the exchange rate between them.

Question A: The first required class for undergraduate economics majors at my university accurately reflects the way that economists think about a range of economics problems.

Question B: The first required class for undergraduate economics majors at my university addresses the most pressing economic issues in the US.

Question A: The incidence of the latest round of US import tariffs is likely to fall primarily on American households.

Question B: The impact of the tariffs – and any Chinese countermeasures – on US prices and employment is likely to be felt most heavily by lower income groups and regions.

Selecting candidates for membership of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) based primarily on their political views would lead to worse monetary policy outcomes than has been the case over the last 15 years.

Question A: The admission of children of alumni and donors at elite private colleges and universities crowds out applicants with greater academic potential.

Question B: The net effect of admitting children of alumni and donors (including any impact on donations and any losses of other high potential applicants) is likely to be a reduction in the contribution of colleges and universities to society.

Question A: Senator Warren’s proposed wealth tax would be much more difficult to enforce than existing federal taxes because of difficulties of valuation and the ways by which the wealthy can under-report their true wealth.

Question B: If successfully enforced, Senator Warren’s proposed wealth tax would substantially decrease the share of wealth going to the top 0.1% of wealth-holders after 20 years.

Question C: A public policy goal that could be accomplished with a well-enforced wealth tax could be equally accomplished with modifications to existing federal taxes – for example, revising the estate tax and/or capital gains tax.

Question A: Forcing Amazon to divest Whole Foods now would be in the public interest.

Question B: Acquisitions by large tech platforms where there are risks of anti-competitive effects like those posed by Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods should not be permitted.

Question C: Large tech platforms, such as Amazon Marketplace and Google Search, should be designated as ‘platform utilities' and broken apart from any participant on that platform.

Question A: Countries that borrow in their own currency should not worry about government deficits because they can always create money to finance their debt.

Question B: Countries that borrow in their own currency can finance as much real government spending as they want by creating money.

Question A: When local governments compete by offering subsidies to a firm that is willing to relocate, and shopping across multiple alternative areas, the firm typically captures most of value that is created via the relocation.

Question B: A federal prohibition against states and municipalities offering tax subsidies to attract specific businesses that are shopping across multiple areas to relocate would be welfare improving for the average taxpayer.

It is best for society if the management of U.S. publicly traded corporations only considers the impact of their decisions on customers, employees, and community members to the extent that these impacts feedback to impact shareholder wealth.

In general, absent any inside information, an equity investor can expect to do better by holding a well-diversified, low-fee, passive index fund than by holding a few stocks.

Raising the top federal marginal tax on earned personal income to 70% (and holding the rest of the current tax code, including the top bracket definition, fixed) would raise substantially more revenue (federal and state, combined) without lowering economic activity.

Rather than using second-round runoffs to settle elections in which no candidate wins a first-round majority, it would be better to use ranked-choice voting (as in the state of Maine) in which voters are encouraged to rank all of the candidates.

The US spends roughly 17% of GDP on healthcare, according to the OECD; most European countries spend less than 12% of GDP.

Higher quality-adjusted US healthcare prices contribute relatively more to the extra US spending than does the combination of higher quantity and quality of US care (interpreting quantity and quality to reflect both greater American healthcare needs due to underlying population health and the delivery of more or better healthcare services to Americans).

Question A: Considering a broad range of costs and benefits is a better tool for guiding climate policy than setting temperature limits (such as 1.5 °C , eg) based on expected links between temperature increases and the extent of environmental harm.

Question B: Carbon taxes are a better way to implement climate policy than cap-and-trade.

Ideas are nonrival, so increasing returns to scale is an essential feature of technological change in a market economy.

If a small number of firms have a large combined market share in a properly defined market, it is strong evidence that those firms have substantial market power.

Question A: Capping the number of ride-sharing drivers as is being discussed in New York City, Chicago and London will make the average resident in that city worse off.

Question B: To achieve a given level of congestion, it would be better to use taxes for driving that vary based on the level of congestion, rather than limiting the number of ride-sharing vehicles.

Because global supply chains are more important now, import tariffs are likely substantially more costly than they would have been 25 years ago.

Britain's Labour party recently proposed giving the Bank of England a target of 3% annual labor productivity growth. Consider the following statement:

Central banks cannot significantly increase productivity growth over a ten year horizon, except perhaps by promoting macroeconomic stability.

The European Union often uses its antitrust powers to protect EU-based firms from international competition, rather than to promote greater competition in European markets.

All things considered, US society will be better off if sports betting becomes legal in more US states (beyond Nevada).

Over the next decade, autonomous cars will raise average welfare in the US by at least as much as smartphones have over the past decade.

Restricting eligibility for senior government economic-policy posts by requiring a graduate degree in economics would reduce the chances for good public policy outcomes.

NCAA Division I schools coordinate compensation for men’s basketball and football players (precluding actual pay and limiting non-monetary benefits), providing rents to member schools (which may be shared with others) at the expense of those players.

Imposing new US tariffs on steel and aluminum will improve Americans’ welfare.

Question A: By providing electronic benefit cards to choose and buy groceries at stores, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program currently does more for its recipients' well-being than it would if the program directly provided a smaller array of foods to its recipients, while commensurately reducing the amount they could spend on groceries of their own choosing.

Question B: By providing electronic benefit cards to choose and buy groceries at stores, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program currently does more to raise food security and reduce hunger than it would if the program directly provided a smaller array of foods to its recipients, while commensurately reducing the amount they could spend on groceries of their own choosing.

The biggest reason for the measured slowdown in US productivity growth since the mid-2000s is that productivity increases have gone mismeasured, including new and better products and services that have been insufficiently captured by real output data.

Because of the many special and unique roles that the dollar plays in global commerce, US citizens are substantially better off than they otherwise would be.

Over the past two years, all else equal, the appeal of the US as a destination for immigrants has changed in ways that will likely decrease innovation in the US economy.

Question A: Without changes in policy, a rising share of people who are over age 65 will exert a substantial downward influence on per capita real GDP in western European countries.

Question B: In European countries where the share of those over 65 is rising, there are net social benefits to adjusting retirement ages for state-financed (including pay-as-you-go) pension systems upwards, so that revised retirement ages better reflect longer life expectancies.

Question A: A bitcoin has a fundamental value of at least $1,000.

Question B: The best forecast for the value of one bitcoin in 2 years is its current price.

Question A: The concept of “maximum sustainable employment” is well defined enough to be used beneficially in economic policymaking.

Question B: Right now the US economy is operating below maximum sustainable employment.

Question A: If the US enacts a tax bill similar to those currently moving through the House and Senate — and assuming no other changes in tax or spending policy — US GDP will be substantially higher a decade from now than under the status quo.

Question B: If the US enacts a tax bill similar to those currently moving through the House and Senate — and assuming no other changes in tax or spending policy — the US debt-to-GDP ratio will be substantially higher a decade from now than under the status quo.

Question A: Amending the Constitution to require that the federal government end each fiscal year without a deficit would substantially reduce output variability in the United States.

Question B: Amending the Constitution to require that the federal government end each fiscal year without a deficit would substantially lower the cost of borrowing for the federal government.

Insights from psychology about individual behavior – examples of which include limited rationality, low self-control, or a taste for fairness – predict several important types of observed market outcomes that fully-rational economic models do not.

The influx of refugees into Germany beginning in the summer of 2015 will generate net economic benefits for German citizens over the succeeding decade.

Question A: Holding labor market institutions and job training fixed, rising use of robots and artificial intelligence is likely to increase substantially the number of workers in advanced countries who are unemployed for long periods.

Question B: Rising use of robots and artificial intelligence in advanced countries is likely to create benefits large enough that they could be used to compensate those workers who are substantially negatively affected for their lost wages.

Question A: If the Fed changed its inflation target from 2% to 4%, the long-run costs of inflation for households would be essentially unchanged.

Question B: Raising the inflation target to 4% would make it possible for the Fed to lower rates by a greater amount in a future recession.

If the US reduced its fiscal deficit, then its trade deficit would also shrink.

Question A: The US should increase spending now on roads, railways, bridges and airports (including new projects, maintenance or both).

Question B: The advisability of increasing federal spending on roads, railways, bridges and airports is independent of whether the US also enacts tax cuts that substantially lower revenues.

Because labor markets across different sectors are connected, rising productivity in manufacturing leads the cost of labor-intensive services — such as education and health care — to rise.

Question A: Since 1980, whenever substantial growth effects have been required to make a tax reform plan revenue neutral, the actual outcome has invariably been a fall in tax revenue as a share of GDP.

Question B: The tax reform plan proposed by President Trump this week would likely pay for itself through higher economic growth.

Question A: Implementing a "destination based cash flow tax (including border adjustment)" of the type advocated by Speaker Ryan would substantially reduce the US trade deficit within the next few years.

Question B: Implementing a “destination based cash flow tax (including border adjustment)” of the type advocated by Speaker Ryan would substantially raise prices for US consumers.

Question A: Forecasting the effects of complex legislative actions is hard, so even competent, non-ideological and non-partisan projections could differ substantially from outcomes.

Question B: Adjusting for legal restrictions on what the CBO can assume about future legislation and events, the CBO has historically issued credible forecasts of the effects of both Democratic and Republican legislative proposals.

Question A: If the US significantly lowers the number of H-1B visas now, expected US tax revenues will rise materially over the next four years.

Question B: If the US significantly lowers the number of H-1B visas now, employment for American workers will rise materially over the next four years.

Providing state and local subsidies to build stadiums for professional sports teams is likely to cost the relevant taxpayers more than any local economic benefits that are generated.

Question A: US share prices have risen since Donald Trump’s election victory at least partly because the policies he seems poised to implement are likely to increase US after-tax corporate profits.

Question B: US share prices have risen since Donald Trump’s election victory at least partly because the policies he seems poised to implement are likely to increase US real GDP growth.

The Council of Economic Advisors is likely to give the US president better policy advice if the Chair and Members of the CEA have published peer-reviewed economics research.

Question A: If all of the “Seven actions to protect American workers” in President-elect Trump’s 100-day plan (see link) are enacted, it will more likely than not improve the economic prospects of middle-class Americans over the next decade.

Question B: If all of the “Seven actions to protect American workers” in President-elect Trump’s 100-day plan are enacted, it will more likely than not improve the economic prospects of low-skilled Americans over the next decade.

A merger of AT&T and Time Warner would likely increase consumer surplus over the ensuing decade.

Long run fiscal sustainability in the US will require some combination of cuts in currently promised Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits and/or tax increases that include higher taxes on households with incomes below $250,000.

Adding new or higher import duties on products such as air conditioners, cars, and cookies — to encourage producers to make them in the US — would be a good idea.

Question A: Allowing US-based employers to hire many more immigrants with advanced degrees in science or engineering would lower (at least temporarily) the premium earned by current American workers with similar degrees.

Question B: Allowing US-based employers to hire many more immigrants with advanced degrees in science or engineering would raise per capita income in the US over time.

Question A: Because of the Brexit vote's outcome, the UK's real per-capita income level is likely to be lower a decade from now.

Question B: Because of the Brexit vote's outcome, the rest of the EU's real per-capita income level is likely to be lower a decade from now.

Granting every American citizen over 21-years old a universal basic income of $13,000 a year — financed by eliminating all transfer programs (including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, housing subsidies, household welfare payments, and farm and corporate subsidies) — would be a better policy than the status quo.

The ratio of the 90th to the 10th percentile of the US income distribution has been unaffected by the Federal Reserve's unconventional monetary policies since the financial crisis.

The “Cadillac tax” on expensive employer-provided health insurance plans will reduce costly distortions in US health care if it is allowed to take effect as scheduled in 2018.

Question A: The four largest domestic US banks currently have around 40% of the industry’s domestic assets (an average of 10% each). In early 1998, before Glass-Steagall ended and before Citicorp merged with Travelers, they held 13.2% (an average of 3.3% each). Thirty years ago, before interstate branching was fully permitted, that combined share was around 8% (an average of 2% each).

Capping US banks’ size so that no single bank could be larger than 4% of the sector's domestic assets would lower systemic risk in the US.

Question B: The US financial system would contribute more to the average American's welfare if the size of US banks were capped so that none could be larger than 4% of the sector's domestic assets.

Question A: By providing important measures of US economic performance — including employment, consumer prices, wages, job openings, time allocation in households, and productivity — the Bureau of Labor Statistics creates social benefits that exceed its annual cost of roughly $610 million.

Question B: Cuts in BLS spending would likely involve net social costs because potential declines in the quality of data, and thus their usefulness to researchers and decision makers, would exceed any budget savings.

An important reason why many workers in Michigan and Ohio have lost jobs in recent years is because US presidential administrations over the past 30 years have not been tough enough in trade negotiations.

Question A: There is no perfect voting system. That is, no voting system can ensure that the winner will be the person who best represents voters’ wishes, including how intensely they favor or disfavor each candidate.

Question B: One clear defect of a winner-take-all election with 3 or more candidates, and with each voter choosing only one candidate, is that a candidate who is strongly disliked by a majority, but strongly liked by a minority, can beat a candidate who is liked by a majority and disliked by relatively few.

Large movements in monthly oil prices, either up or down, are driven primarily by speculators, as opposed to changes in the current (and planned) supply or demand for oil.