US Economic Experts Panel

 

 

With the emergence of a new strain of the virus that causes Covid-19 re-opening debates about the economic impact of the pandemic, the success of efforts to achieve global distribution of vaccines and the value of travel bans, we invited our panels to express their views on these issues. In early December, we asked the experts whether they agreed or disagreed with the following statements, and, if so, how strongly and with what degree of confidence:

 

With consumer prices rising at the fastest pace for three decades, we invited our US panel to express their views on the risks of prolonged higher inflation as a result of the current stance of fiscal and monetary policy, as well as the likely impact of an easing of supply bottlenecks. We asked the experts whether they agreed or disagreed with the following statements, and, if so, how strongly and with what degree of confidence:

 

 

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was recently awarded to David Card of the University of California, Berkeley, ‘for his empirical contributions to labour economics’, and to Joshua Angrist of MIT and Guido Imbens of Stanford University ‘for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships’. As has become an annual tradition at the IGM, we invited our panels to express their views on the work of the new laureates. We asked the experts whether they agreed or disagreed with the following statements, and, if so, how strongly and with what degree of confidence:

 

 

Following the Biden administration’s announcement of its intention to require that anyone at a firm with more than 100 employees or in the federal workforce be vaccinated or tested regularly, we invited our US panel to express their views on the likely economic impact of the vaccine mandate. We asked the experts whether they agree or disagree with the following statement, and, if so, how strongly and with what degree of confidence:

 

This week's US Economic Experts Panel statements:

A) The use of non-compete clauses in US employment contracts reduces workers' mobility and wages by more than is justified by the protection of employers' intellectual property and trade secrets.

B) Occupational licensing reduces mobility and wages for workers in many sectors where they could safely deliver services that consumers would prefer to those offered by licensed workers. 

This week's US Economic Experts Panel statements:

A) Industry consolidation and weaker competition in the United States meaningfully constrain innovation and wage growth.

B) Americans pay too much for broadband, cable television, and telecommunications services, in part because of a lack of adequate competition.