--Andrew Atkeson (UCLA) What does it mean to say that “The path of the economy will depend significantly on the course of the virus.”? (Starts at 00:02:30) Abstract: Policymakers at the Federal Reserve have added the sentence “The path of the economy will depend significantly on the course of the virus” to their official statement after each meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. What do they mean by this statement? Don’t we as a society face a choice between disease mitigation and the economy? Couldn’t we have a faster economic recovery if we were willing to tolerate more deaths from COVID-19? In this talk I review recent evidence on the experience of a large number of countries and states of the United States with COVID deaths and economic performance. I interpret that data using a simple SIR model of the epidemic that incorporates the response of private economic behavior to COVID deaths. I use that model to show how “luck” and “policy” have both played an important role in shaping the diversity of outcomes observed across regions over the past six months. I then use that model to show how epi-macro models of this kind deliver forecasts of a long and slow economic recovery from this pandemic. --Andrew Metrick (Yale University) The Economic Policy Response to Covid-19: Lessons Learned (So Far) (Starts at 01:05:30) --Emil Verner (MIT) Is There a Tradeoff between Public Health Interventions and the Economy in a Pandemic? (Starts at 02:07:30) Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked urgent questions about the economic effects of a pandemic and the associated policy responses. A crucial question is whether and to what extent there is a tradeoff between non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce mortality and economic activity. This presentation presents evidence from recent research on the economic impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions from both the 1918 Influenza Pandemic and the current COVID-19 pandemic. A growing body of evidence suggests that NPIs that reduce mortality are only responsible for a small fraction of the decline in economic activity. Instead, fear and uncertainty from the virus itself are responsible for the majority of the economic damage.