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Europe

Prices of Medical Supplies

Question A:

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

Responses

Source: European Clark Center Economic Experts Panel
Methodology
Question B:

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

Responses

Source: European Clark Center Economic Experts Panel
Methodology
Question 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.

Responses

Source: European Clark Center Economic Experts Panel
Methodology
 
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Clark Center Economic Experts Panel
US

Stimulus and Stabilizers

Question A:

Assuming that additional federal spending were to be structured as in the CARES Act, a substantial further spending program now will ultimately be less costly than a smaller program because it will better help to avoid long-term economic damage and promote a stronger recovery.

Responses

Source: Clark Center Economic Experts Panel
Methodology
Question B:

Having a fiscal rule that increases social spending on programs like unemployment insurance and SNAP based on the conditions of the economy would be an improvement on the discretionary way in which these programs are currently operated.

Responses

Source: Clark Center Economic Experts Panel
Methodology
 
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Clark Center Economic Experts Panel
COVID-19

Managing the Coming Global Debt Crisis

Barry Eichengreen The economic crisis that has befallen emerging and developing economies is being treated as temporary, with a moratorium on interest payments and a promise of commercial credits remaining valid only through the end of the year. In other words, the policy response is woefully inadequate to these countries’ situation. Read more> 
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COVID-19
COVID-19

The Economic Hit of the Coronavirus Will Last for Years

Barry Eichengreen Consumer and business spending will stay cautious even after Covid-10 is contained, but the state can fill the gap. In a column in the Guardian newspaper in mid-April, Barry Eichengreen noted that we must not turn off the fiscal tap too early, as the US and Europe did in 2010. Read more> 
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COVID-19
COVID-19

Towards a European Reconstruction Fund

Luis Garicano The idea that Europe’s response to the economic crisis should be based on the issuance of common perpetual bonds has been slowly gaining ground, but proposals that entail substantial increases to member states’ debt risk hampering growth for decades to come. This column argues that the time has come for genuine European spending […] 
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COVID-19
COVID-19

The Cost of the COVID-19 Crisis: Lockdowns, Macroeconomic Expectations, and Consumer Spending

Olivier Coibion, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, and Michael Weber We study how the differential timing of local lockdowns due to COVID-19 causally affects households’ spending and macroeconomic expectations at the local level using several waves of a customized survey with more than 10,000 respondents. While lockdowns have pronounced effects on local economic conditions and households’ expectations, they […] 
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COVID-19
COVID-19

Viral Recessions: Lack of Demand During the Coronavirus Crisis

Veronica Guerrieri, Guido Lorenzoni, Ludwig Straub, Iván Werning The Covid-19 pandemic and the policies taken to control its spread have many features of an aggregate supply shock, as workers who stay home are prevented from producing goods and services. This column argues that when a supply shock asymmetrically affects different sectors of the economy, it […] 
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COVID-19