Newsletter Issue no. 189 April 2020 Economics and the virus There are not many events that have survived the Covid- Correspondence 19 crisis. The Society’s Annual Conference in Belfast is just one victim. One small exception is the Society’s April Letter from America — In a Time of Plague p.3 Newsletter. For some years now, this has been dominated by reports — from the editors of the Economic Journal and The Econometrics Journal and from the Society’s Secretary-General. And in the current atmosphere of Features gloom and anxiety it is heartening to read reports of good Secretary-General’s Annual Report p.5 progress being made by the Society and its journals. That said, it is impossible to escape the reality of huge Surveying top economists on policy issues p.8 disruption caused by the epidemic. If Angus is to be believed the virus may even influence the forthcoming Economic Journal — presidential election, causing even more ‘mischief’ than Editors’ Annual Report, 2019 p.9 the Russians achieved last time. Equally worrying is the woeful inadequacy of the US healthcare system. Econometrics Journal — Managing editor’s Annual Report, 2019 p.12 A lack of preparedness features also in Romesh Vaitilingam’s account of the IMG forum based at Chicago The Past’s Long Shadow: network analysis of Booth University. The forum conducts regular surveys of economic history p.15 leading economists about public policy issues. Inevitably, the most pressing issues of the moment concern the public Witholding full value — The real wage, Bretton health crisis and it is interesting (though hardly reassuring) Woods and ‘Target Balances’ p.18 that european economists, polled on the question of how prepared they thought governments to be, showed remark- able foresight in their pessimistic answers. Society of Professional Economists — Salaries Report 2019 p.21 In contrast to all this, Gregori Galofré-Vilà looks at the development of the discipline of economic history over the Economics teaching and COVID-19 p.24 last forty years. Many readers will remember the extent to which pleas for ‘more economic history’ featured in propos- als for reform of the economics curriculum after the finan- cial crisis. Gregori’s article and reveals the recent rapid growth in publications, showing it driven largely by schol- RES news p.25 ars in continental Europe. Finally, we include a summary of the latest survey of econ- omists’ salaries carried out by the Society of Professional Conference diary p.26 Economists. Once again, readers of long-standing will remember past surveys carried out by what was then the Society of Business Economists. As always, the results are interesting though the sample size is small. Maybe the RES and SPE should consider a joint approach. Royal Economic Society Economic Royal THE ROYAL ECONOMIC SOCIETY • President: Professor Rachel Griffith (University of Manchester) • President-elect: Professor Carol Propper (Imperial College Business School) • Past-president: Professor Lord Nicholas Stern (LSE) • Secretary-General: Professor Denise Osborn (University of Manchester) The Royal Economic Society is one of the oldest and most prestigious economic The Society’s associations in the world. It is a learned society, founded in 1890 with the aim Newsletter ‘to promote the study of economic science.’ Initially called the British Economic Association, it became the Royal Economic Society on receiving its Royal Charter in 1902. The current officers of the Executive The Newsletter is first and fore- Committee are listed above. most a vehicle for the dissemina- The Society’s bee logo tion of news and comment of inter- The Society’s logo, shown below, has been used from its earliest est to its readers. Contributions from days. 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SW1P 3HE Email: [email protected] [email protected] Tel: 020 3137 6301 Email: [email protected] Website: www.res.org.uk Designed by Sarum Editorial Services: www.sarum-editorial.co.uk https://www.res.org.uk/membership/newsletter.html 2 Correspondence Letter from America — In a time of plague In this Letter from America Angus reports that the coronavirus pandemic has sharpened the already urgent debate between candidates in the Democratic primaries about the US healthcare system but doubts that much improvement will be forthcoming until there is a fundamental change in the attitude toward public goods. fIND IT UNUSUALLY HARD TO DECIDE what to write Healthcare systems under stress about; I cannot imagine not writing about the coron- It is not clear what we should learn from the pandemic Iavirus, but a Letter from America is hardly the place to about healthcare systems. American healthcare is a dis- describe a quickly evolving pandemic that is likely to be grace at any time. It costs more than twice what it ought quite different by the time you read this. My apologies. to, it leaves 27 million people without coverage, it permits and even encourages pharmaceutical companies to profit Choosing a Democratic candidate by addicting and killing hundreds of thousands of people, In spite of the plague, we are in the midst of the primary and it delivers one of the lowest life expectancies among season for the Presidential Election. The Democrats wealthy countries. Physicians are allowed to boost their managed to accomplish, even without rank order voting, wages and restrict their numbers, so that the US has fewer what the Republicans could not do in 2016, which is to doctors per head than most European countries, though coalesce moderate voters around a single candidate. about the same as Britain. Hospitals are both monopolies There was otherwise a and monopsonies, and are real expectation that, rarely challenged by the once again, a candidate What should happen is a greater recognition and respect legal system or anti-trust opposed by a large major- for public“ goods .. Some health needs — epidemics, water sup- authorities. We have fewer ity would win against a ply, vaccinations — require community, not individual action. beds and fewer nurses than group of rivals who, in Public institutions — the Centers for Disease Control or the most European countries, aggregate, were support- Internal Revenue Service — which prioritize the public good over though slightly more than ed by many more. individual needs, have been increasingly underfunded. Britain. All of this leaves us ill-prepared to deal with the Biden has promised to ” pandemic. People will be select a woman as his running mate, an important choice fearful of the costs of testing, and even if that is covered, for a 77-year old in the midst of an epidemic whose case of the costs of treatment. And even if they were not, there fatality rate rises rapidly with age. My personal bet (and will not be enough intensive-care beds to treat them. favorite) is Kamala Harris, a feisty and skillful debater who has the unusual qualification of being the daughter of Britain is also ill-prepared, but for a different reason, a well-known economist. (Her father is the Harris of the government underfunding through a long period of aus- Harris and Todaro analysis of migration and develop- terity. As in the US, this was wrong before and remains ment.) The primary contest appears to be over, and wrong now. But the truth is that no health system, how- receives remarkably little press attention in the face of ever well designed and funded, could deal with the almost anything about the virus (or its effects on the stock plague that threatens to overwhelm us. No planner market.) Several states have postponed their primaries, would make preparations for something that we have not and there is surely danger to a smooth election in seen in a century, would construct intensive care units November. Voter suppression is now a standard tool on that are almost always empty, nor construct tens of thou- the right, and the virus might justify great mischief. The sands of ventilators that are almost never needed and coronavirus, or the Chinese virus as it is being called by would rust in place. President Trump and his allies, might influence this elec- tion even more effectively than did the Russians in the China has had a remarkably effective response, and last. could do what was needed, including building new hos- pitals in days and ordering people not to move. Even so, Biden and Sanders have clashed on whether the pandemic the epidemic may possibly reignite when controls are demonstrates the need for the single-payer healthcare sys- lifted.