US

Omicron

Question A:

Even without renewed Covid-19 restrictions, uncertainty about the health threat from the Omicron variant is likely to deliver a significant hit to economic activity from now through the first half of 2022.

Question B:

If world vaccine supply continues to be limited, global social welfare would rise by more if those vaccines were made widely available across Africa (with support for effective delivery) rather than accelerating booster vaccinations in rich countries.

Question C:

Imposing travel bans on countries where new Covid-19 variants are discovered will make it less likely that countries will reveal new variants to the rest of the world.

 
Europe

Omicron

Question A:

Even without renewed Covid-19 restrictions, uncertainty about the health threat from the Omicron variant is likely to deliver a significant hit to economic activity from now through the first half of 2022.

Question B:

If world vaccine supply continues to be limited, global social welfare would rise by more if those vaccines were made widely available across Africa (with support for effective delivery) rather than accelerating booster vaccinations in rich countries.

Question C:

Imposing travel bans on countries where new Covid-19 variants are discovered will make it less likely that countries will reveal new variants to the rest of the world.

 
FT-Booth US Macroeconomists Survey

FTxIGM Survey: Fed Completing ‘Tapering’?

This month’s FTxIGM US Macroeconomists Survey discusses the Fed’s likelihood to “stop bond purchases by the end of March [2022].” The article goes on to look at the economists’ current expectations regarding inflation and employment.  The summary results are below and you can read the Financial Times article here, subscription required. View the results of […] 
US

Inflation

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:

 
US

Natural Experiments in Labor Economics and Beyond

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:

 
Europe

Natural Experiments in Labor Economics and Beyond

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: