Firms’ incentives to reduce costs by sourcing inputs and products abroad have caused many American industries to become more vulnerable to supply chain disruptions.
Private firms have inadequate incentives to make investments to reduce the risk that disruptions in the supply of imports will cause shortages and raise domestic prices.
Global supply chain disruptions are the main driver of elevated US inflation over the past year.
Given the centrality of semiconductors to the manufacturing of many products, securing reliable supplies should be a key strategic objective of EU and national policy.
Europe’s small role in global semiconductor production is a direct result of insufficient private investment in high-tech innovation.
Public support at EU and national level for investment along the value chain for semiconductors, including production, would be the most effective way to ensure security of supply.
With sharply rising US inflation prompting debate about the potential role of powerful firms in driving up prices and whether antitrust interventions and/or price controls may be an effective policy response, we invited our US panel to express their views. 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 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 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:
