Predicting the path ahead has become nearly impossible, but we can speculate about the size and scale of the economic shock. Economic contagion is now spreading as fast as Covid-19 itself. Social distancing, intended to physically disrupt the spread, has severed the flow of goods and people, stalled economies, and is in the process of delivering a global recession.
Predicting the path ahead has become nearly impossible, as multiple dimensions of the crisis are unprecedented and unknowable. Pressing questions include the path of the shock and recovery, whether economies will be able to return to their pre-shock output levels and growth rates, and whether there will be any structural legacy from the coronavirus crisis.
This Explainer explores several scenarios to model the size and scale of the economic shock and the path ahead.
Based on the HBR article by Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, Martin Reeves and Paul Swartz
Bloomberg Opinion columnist Barry Ritholtz interviews economist, bestselling author and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, whose most recent book is “Arguing With Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future.” 
Paul Robin Krugman (born February 28, 1953) is an American economist who is the Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for The New York Times. In 2008, Krugman was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to New Trade Theory and New Economic Geography. The Prize Committee cited Krugman’s work explaining the patterns of international trade and the geographic distribution of economic activity, by examining the effects of economies of scale and of consumer preferences for diverse goods and services.
inevitabilities of globalization but to the concentration of corporate power. By lobbying against competition, the biggest firms drive profits higher while depressing wages and limiting opportunities for investment, innovation, and growth.
Right now, you tend to have investment advisors for retirees, and insurance advisors or salespersons for retirees, and it’s fairly rare to go to somebody who can sell you annuities or invest your money and has no financial incentive to tilt one way or the other. Ultimately, what I’d like to see are people who have knowledge of both annuities and investments, and who are compensated in a way that doesn’t influence the decision.
Nobel Prize–winning economist William Sharpe has spent most of his career thinking about risk. He’s behind the Capital Asset Pricing Model for gauging systemic risk and the eponymous Sharpe ratio, which captures risk-adjusted return.
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