Clark Center Forum

Aaron Edlin The new stimulus plan is likely to be ineffective or even counterproductive by accelerating the spread of the coronavirus: Aaron Edlin, director of the Law, Economics, and Politics Center (LEAP) at Berkeley School of Law argues that much more of the money should be spent on increasing healthcare capacity, which may be a […] 

Patrick Honohan In facing the sharp economic crisis that is spinning out of the pandemic, European fiscal and monetary policymakers must not forget lessons learned in the 10 years since the euro area crisis got under way. There can be no excuse for repeating the errors that were made then. Read more> 

Jeremy C. Stein, Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson, and Adi Sunderam The Federal Reserve’s supervisory and regulatory functions need to begin acting immediately to buy insurance against the risk of large bank losses which have been made more likely by the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more> 

Peter DeMarzo, Hanno Lustig, Amit Seru, and Jeffrey Zwiebel Beginning with SARS, Ebola, Zika, MERS, and now COVID-19, the world has witnessed the magnitude of the threat from the outbreak of an infectious and deadly disease. The subsequent scramble for a vaccine, and the long delays involved, makes it clear that we are unprepared. Why […] 

James H. Stock In the absence of testing equipment – most recently, swabs – tests for the novel coronavirus have been rationed, with the most vulnerable or those in most need of help prioritized. As tests become more widely available, however, some of the new testing resources should be devoted to randomized testing. What we […] 

Luigi Zingales In deciding on possible countermeasures, residents of Western democracies often hear only two opposite perspectives: Is the priority to minimize the loss of human lives, or to minimize the impact that the countermeasures might have on the economy? Even the simplest cost-benefit analysis suggests that the US government should be willing to spend […] 

Niels Joachim Gormsen and Ralph S. J. Koijen The economic effects of the coronavirus outbreak, and the preventive measures adopted around the world, are still largely unknown. In addition, standard macroeconomic models based on fundamentals may be slow to adapt in this fast-changing environment. This column uses high-frequency data on dividend futures to evaluate the […] 

Agnès Bénassy-Quéré, Arnoud Boot, Antonio Fatás, Marcel Fratzscher, Clemens Fuest, Francesco Giavazzi, Ramon Marimon, Philippe Martin, Jean Pisani-Ferry, Lucrezia Reichlin, Dirk Schoenmaker, Pedro Teles, Beatrice Weder di Mauro It is in the interest of every EU member state that countries in the Union hit by the coronavirus are able to take the necessary measures to […] 

R. Glenn Hubbard, Hal Scott, and John L. Thornton The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and banking regulators deserve congratulations for their bold, necessary actions to provide liquidity to the U.S. financial system amid the coronavirus crisis. But more remains to be done. Read More> 

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Raghuram Rajan We need to fight this pandemic into submission everywhere in order to relax measures anywhere Read more>