Policy Punchline

"What are the economic consequences of an influenza pandemic? And given the pandemic, what are the economic costs and benefits of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI)?" In a recently published economics paper, Prof. Emil Verner and his co-authors find that cities that intervened earlier and more aggressively in the 1918 Spanish Flu did not perform worse and, if anything, grew faster after the pandemic was over. Their findings thus indicate that NPIs not only lower mortality; they may also mitigate the adverse economic consequences of a pandemic. The paper is titled "Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: Evidence from the 1918 Flu," and it provides crucial justification for the current social distancing measures and guidance on how we should handle this current Covid-19 crisis. In this interview, we ask Prof. Verner about his research methodology, why the 1918 Flu serves as a reliable comparison with the coronavirus outbreak, what recovery measures can be taken after the shutdo