Is there a connection between the 2007-2009 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic? Steven Ongena talks to Tim Phillips about the relation between both macroeconomic and financial losses derived from the financial crisis and the health outcomes associated with the first wave of the pandemic.
You can find the paper behind this interview here
Misfortunes Never Come Alone: From the Financial Crisis to the Covid-19 Pandemic by Antonio Moreno, Steven Ongena, Alexia Ventula Veghazy and Alexander F. Wagner
Video Vox
Steven Ongena 01 June 2021
Daniel Gros 18 May 2021
Experience with Covid-19 has shown how vaccinating the population as quickly as possible can be of paramount importance, however with fixed contracts the benefits for early delivery of such vaccines are huge for society, but non-existent for suppliers. Daniel Gros (Centre for European Policy Studies) talks to Tim Philips about why vaccine contracts should have incentives for accelerated production built into them.
The paper discussed can be found here:
Covid Economics Issue 77: Incentives for accelerating the production of Covid-19 vaccines in the presence of adjustment costs by Claudius Gros & Daniel Gros
Francesca Caselli 11 May 2021
Francesca Caselli of the IMF talks to Tim Phillips about evidence for the extent and persistence of pandemic-induced she-cessions, drawing on quarterly data from 38 advanced and emerging market economies, which uncovers significant heterogeneity across countries. In two-thirds of the countries studied, women’s employment rates declined more than men’s, but the differences were short-lived – lasting only a quarter or two on average – and strongly correlated to specific sectors of the economy.
Monica Martinez-Bravo 04 May 2021
Mass vaccination programmes, and the problems of trust surrounding them, have been brought sharply into focus by COVID-19. In July 2011, the Pakistani public learnt that the CIA had used a vaccination campaign as cover to capture Osama Bin Laden. The Taliban leveraged on this information and launched an anti-vaccine propaganda campaign to discredit vaccines and vaccination workers. Monica Martinez-Bravo tells Tim Phillips about her research into the long-term effects of this episode on vaccination behaviour in Pakistan.
Gabriel Zucman 20 April 2021
Tim Phillips (CEPR) talks with Gabriel Zucman (UC Berkeley), co-author of the proposal 'A Wealth Tax on Corporations’ Stock', presented during the online policy discussion "Tackling the Inequality Effects of Covid – and How to Pay for It" at the Spring 2021 Economic Policy Panel Meeting.For more information and to download Gabriel's paper, visit the Economic Policy website https://www.economic-policy.org/73rd-economic-policy-panel/wealth-tax-on-giant-corporations/
Christian Gollier 13 April 2021
Christian Gollier talks to Tim Phillips about vaccine rollout with regard to France, where modelling suggests a doubling of the speed of vaccination achieved in March could reduce deaths in 2021 by a third, while the presence of senior anti-vaxxers may imply around 5,000 additional deaths among the senior pro-vaxxer population (based on 30% of the population refusing the vaccine). Vaccine nationalism is estimated to increase the global death toll by 20%.
You can download the paper here: Gollier, C (2021), “The welfare cost of vaccine misallocation, delays and nationalism”, Covid Economics 74: 1-24 https://cepr.online/CE74
Colombe Ladreit 06 April 2021
Colombe Ladreit (Bocconi University) talks to Tim Phillips about her research with Laurence Boone that finds that government restrictions affected mobility in advanced OECD economies much more than fears of COVID-19 infection. This effect is more visible during the first wave than during the second.
Coen Teulings 30 March 2021
School closures have been a globally used strategy in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Coen Teulings talks to Tim Phillips about a SIR (Susceptibles-Infected-Recovered) model for the Netherlands, where the recent closure of primary and secondary schools is shown to be counter-productive (as it increases future vulnerability to infection) and hard to reverse (since the increased vulnerability demands continuation). Behavioural economics explains why decision making and the public debate are so distorted, to the detriment of youngsters.
Gabriele Guaitoli, Todor Tochev 23 March 2021
The business restrictions introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic greatly affected the labour market. However, quantifying their costs is not trivial as local policies affect neighbouring areas through spillovers. Gabriele Guaitoli and Todor Tochev of Warwick University tell Tim Phillips about their work which exploits the US local variation in restrictions and commuting, to estimate the causal direct and spillover impacts of lockdowns. Spillovers alone account for 10-15% of U.S. job losses.
Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh 16 March 2021
Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh talks to Tim Phillips about research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on real estate markets in the US, where sizable enough changes in rent and price gradients have been documented to suggest that urban residents are fleeing city centres for the suburbs. Limits placed on city amenities combined with expanding opportunities to work from home have reduced the premium on urban living.