Never before in human history have there been as many people alive as there are right now. The human population had been gradually increasing for the last couple of millennia, until there was an explosion in growth in the 19th century due to rapid medical and economic progress, brought about by the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. As a result, the number of people has skyrocketed … Continue reading Overpopulation: Should we be worried?
A demographic dividend refers to the positive impact anticipated for an economy’s productivity and growth due to the age structure of its population. A younger population is useful for the growth of economies as a larger working force population can translate to increased output as well as decreased dependency from senior citizens per worker. The age demographic influences consumption trends, productivity patterns, natural increases in … Continue reading When a Demographic Dividend Becomes a Demographic Nightmare
As COVID-19 continues to spread, governments face a critical decision: whether to prioritise the economy or the lives of the people. In attempting to address this question, four frameworks are essential: the utilitarian, scarcity-based, duty-based and Rawlsian approach. The principle that, as Thomas Jefferson puts it, “the care of human life and happiness is the first and only object of good government” will be adopted … Continue reading Is maintaining the economy a fair trade for lives?
Millions unemployed. The world in shock. Governments panicking. Both the financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic left the globe reeling. Yet governments responded with their own bailout packages, their own furlough schemes and their own targeted welfare programs. It’s quite interesting how differently the public has reacted to these plans and in turn, how effective they were to actually solve both the short and long-term … Continue reading Financial responses to Covid-19 and the 2008 financial crisis
Today it takes only 40 hours to circumnavigate the world by plane, 40 days by boat and 346 days by foot. This is an era of unparalleled human movement and interaction. People, products and capital travel the world with unprecedented quantity and speed, as do countless disease-causing microorganisms. However, this connectivity paradoxically can help to prevent and control the severity and emergence of such diseases. … Continue reading The Impact of Globalisation on Pandemics
Ever since the dawn of mankind, pandemics have been a threat to our survival. From the Justinian Plague to the Polio epidemic, one only has to look back through history to see examples of devastating diseases ravaging populations. Now, in the 21st century we face another pandemic: Covid-19 has killed thousands and disrupted the lives of billions more, and there is extreme uncertainty about the … Continue reading Can Past Pandemics Predict the Future?
The coronavirus pandemic, and the ensuing economic crisis, has provoked unprecedented responses from policy makers, no more so than from central banks. The Federal Reserve’s major actions include purchasing up to $750 billion of investment-grade corporate debt and lowering its discount window rate to 1.5% – lower than it ever was in the GFC. This makes the Fed’s additional pledge to buy $700 billion in … Continue reading Lessons from the crash and today’s trends in Western monetary policy
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning”. These famous words delivered by Winston Churchill after the defeat of the Germans at Alamein in 1942, marked a turning point in WWII. Such words would be apt today in the “world war” against COVID-19. The first phase of the shock is … Continue reading Has Covid-19 let the MMT genie out of the bottle?
Has the coronavirus proven the existence of the magic money tree? Theresa May, in response to an NHS nurse who hadn’t received a pay rise in eight years, asserted that “there isn’t a magic money tree” during a 2017 election special of Question Time; on the 20th of March 2020, Rishi Sunak introduced the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme that is estimated to cost around £78bn, … Continue reading Modern Monetary Theory Revisited
Reinhard Selten, 1994 Nobel prize and founding father of experimental economics, predicted that individuals wouldn’t play the conventional Nash Equilibrium in the Ultimatum Game, better known as a take-it-or-leave-it offer. This was proven to be accurate when his student Werner Güth showed this supposedly irrational behaviour in his 1982 experiments. In game theory a Nash Equilibrium is a scenario where neither player would benefit from … Continue reading The Rationality of Irrationality
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