USA Academic Discussion - Reopening The Coronavirus-closed Economy — Principles And Tradeoffs

12th May 2020

This webinar from Brookings lasts one hour forty-nine minutes.

There are several issues discussed that have parallels for UK.

In an extraordinary response to an extraordinary public health challenge, the U.S. government has forced much of the economy to shut down. We now face the challenge of deciding when and how to reopen it. This is both vital and complicated. Wait too long—maintain the lockdown until we have a vaccine, for instance—and we'll have another Great Depression. Move too soon, and we get an uptick in cases and deaths in a few months.

To offer some principles and, importantly, to illuminate the tradeoffs, the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy is convening an online event on May 12. James Stock of Harvard will open the program by presenting a background paper on the issue, followed by remarks from Nobel laureate Angus Deaton of Princeton, Ross Hammond of Brookings, and epidemiologist Caroline Buckee of Harvard.