Tag Archives: Economic Consequences of the Pandemic

In most societies, there is a myth of a ‘golden age’, a time when men and women lived simply and happily, free from the cares and troubles that afflict them today. This myth usually includes an account of how, through foolishness or malice, the golden age was lost. In Western versions, the blame has been placed upon women – Pandora opening the box and Eve taking the apple. In the economic history of the developed world, there is one historical episode which might reasonably be...

When I agreed to write The Economic Consequences of the Pandemic for Yale UP, with a target date of May 2021 the idea was that it would be a polemic against austerity along the lines of Keynes’ The Economic Consequences of Mr Churchill, and the The Economic Consequences of the Peace [1] . In view of the rapid resurgence of austerity politics after the Global Financial Crisis, about which Henry and I wrote here, it seemed like a safe bet that this would be a hot topic in 2021. Even when...

A draft of the first chapter of my book, The Economic Consequences of the Pandemic. Comments, criticism and congratulations all welcome. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

Another extract from my book-in-progress, Economic Consequences of the Pandemic The 20-year armistice from 1919 to 1939 was a period of economic stagnation in Europe, punctuated by crises which had disastrous economic and political effects. And while the US boomed in the 1920s, the Great Depression that began in 1929 caused massive unemployment and suffering which lasted through the 1930s. What lessons can we learn for the present? The most important is the danger of...

One of the striking discoveries of the Internet age for me is that, no matter how original and idiosyncratic you imagine your thoughts to be, someone else has already thought them[1]. My book-in-progress, The Economic Consequences of the Pandemic is largely about the mistakes made between 1919 and 1939, and what we can learn from them. This period is usually called ‘interwar’, going along with the conventional naming of World War I and World War II, implying two separate conflicts....

The idea that we should tax the rich to fund public services and transfers to the poor seems obvious from an egalitarian perspective, at least as long as we are in a society with significantly unequal incomes. But it has been challenged recently by some advocates of Modern Monetary Theory. [note: The meaning of ‘rich’ is rarely spelt out, and isn’t very helpful. Hardly anyone is willing to admit to being rich, so the discussion tends to focus on a handful of cases like Bill Gates,...

The requirement that the rate of growth exceeds the rate of interest on government debt may be written algebraically as g > r. Readers of Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century will recall that he places a lot of stress on the opposite formula r > g. What is going on here? The answer, in simple terms, is that Piketty is talking about the rate of return to investment, and more particularly the rate of return earned by high-wealth investors. This rate is as much as 6 percentage...

That’s the headline[1] for my latest piece in the Canberra Times. It doesn’t appear to be paywalled, but I’m including the text over the fold. The 1918–19 pandemic has more to teach us about the biggest challenge we face, says JOHN QUIGGIN We are all familiar with images of mud and death in the trenches of the First World War. But it’s only over the past year that many of us have seen photos of the influenza pandemic that raged during the last year of the war and on...

Another extract from my book-in-progress, Economic Consequences of the Pandemic Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, governments around the world have issued huge amounts of public debt, much of which has been purchased by central banks. In the US, for example, Federal public debt increased by $3 trillion over the course of 2020 (this is about 15 per cent of US national income) while the monetary base (money created directly by the Federal Reserve) increased by around $1.6...

As was the case with Economics in Two Lessons, I’ve been struggling with the material for my book-in-progress, The Economic Consequences of the Pandemic. But I’ve now managed to put together a synopsis I can work with. I’d very much appreciate comments, including but not limited to: topics I should be covering; issues raised by the brief summaries; and useful references. Thanks for comments so far, and thanks in advance for more. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...