Coronavirus: The economic crisis

My article of the day recommends to you a superb podcast from the BBC's Real Story which brings together a number of economists including Linda Yueh, Stephanie Flanders (head of Bloomberg Economics) and Yanis Varoufakis - Greek economist to discuss some of the likely economic consequences from the Coronavirus Crisis.

We are in the foothills of a global public health crisis with severe economic fallout and the two are intimately linked. Governments across the world are asking and now demanding that people stop what they do in their normal lives - from going to the gym, having a coffee with friends or heading to a restaurant - in the name of flattening the curve of infections and thereby protecting hard-pressed public health systems.

This is a severe demand and supply-side shock and events of this magnitude demand from policy makers shock therapy on an unprecedented scale and immediacy. Do our public health, financial and real economic systems have the capacity and resilience to cope with this shock? Will fiscal and monetary policy effectively have to become unified to prevent mass unemployment and a depression?

Looking forward, in what ways might economic systems, modes of production, patterns of behaviour and attitudes to the role of the state change?

There is too much uncertainty to be confident of any of the answers to these and many other questions. But this podcast is a super primer to where we are at present. Thanks to my former colleague at RGS Newcastle Pete Shelley for flagging it up to me. Enjoy listening!

You can listen to it here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csydff