Arnold Kling runs some numbers, and comes away less than optimistic:
Now for some grim math. Let C be the number of known cases, H be the ratio of hospitalizations to known cases, and D be the ratio of deaths to hospitalizations. Then we have:
(1) total deaths = DxHxC
For example, if there are 1000 known cases (C=1000), 5 percent of these are hospitalized, and 20 percent of those who are hospitalized die, then deaths = 1000x.05x.20 = 10. Note that in this particular example, I assumed that no one dies who is not hospitalized. In reality some people will die without being hospitalized, and they will count in D.
FT Alphaville with a three point agenda for economic policy, and in the order mentioned:
deal with the health crisis | make sure incomes don’t spiral downwards | investment led programs to boos incomes
Read the post for the details.
Also from FT Alphaville, a plea to let markets be:
We don’t disagree that calming markets is important; the current volatility is bad for thousands of viable businesses looking to raise capital, and for those who are hoping to retire soon. But a ban on short-selling helps absolutely no one, bar perhaps the egos of the regulatory community. Time for a change of tack.
And Alex Tabarrok over at MR is fuming about Theranos and patents. Here are old EFE posts on patents.
And finally, EconLife on externalities, the corona virus and demographics:
An externality refers to the impact of an activity or a contract or a decision on an uninvolved third party. Good and bad, externalities can be positive and negative. A vaccine creates a positive externality while water pollution results in the negative ripple. For the coronavirus, we have a cascade of results that can become positive and negative externalities. They include a depressed or accelerated birth rate and divorce rate.
EconForEverybody 