Question 1:What damage will school closures have on economic growth over a 10-15 year horizon?
Answer:
Minor
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
Negligible to minor over 10 to 15 years. In a brand new working paper, co-authors and I (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3602004) review the recent literature which finds that, based on previous pandemics, costs of school closures are estimated between 0.2% and 1% of UK national gross domestic product per annum for school closures of 12-13 weeks. The real question here is: can we have meaningful social distancing at school? The answer, of course, is obvious...
Question 2: Which aspect of the economy poses the greatest risk for a slow recovery?
Answer:
Labour markets (e.g. unemployment hysteresis effects)
Confidence level:
Confident
Question 1: How quickly will the economy rebound (e.g. to the pre-pandemic trend) once the COVID-19 pandemic has been contained and absent major policy interventions?
Answer:
The economy will recover within a small number (1-5) of years
The CFM surveys informs the public about the views held by prominent economists based in Europe on important macroeconomic and public policy questions. Some surveys focus specifically on the UK economy (as the CFM is a UK research centre), but surveys can in principle focus on any macroeconomic question for any region. The surveys shed light on the extent to which there is agreement or disagreement among these experts. An important motivation for the survey is to give a more comprehensive overview of the beliefs held by economists and in particular to include the views of those economists whose opinions are not frequently heard in public debates.
Questions mainly focus on macroeconomic and public policy topics. Although there are some questions that focus specifically on the UK economy, the setup of the survey is much broader and considers questions related to other countries/regions and also considers questions not tied to a specific economy.
The surveys are done in collaboration with the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
The Economic Cost of School Closures
Question 1:What damage will school closures have on economic growth over a 10-15 year horizon?
Will COVID-19 Cause Permanent Damage to the UK Economy?
Question 2: Which aspect of the economy poses the greatest risk for a slow recovery?
Question 1: How quickly will the economy rebound (e.g. to the pre-pandemic trend) once the COVID-19 pandemic has been contained and absent major policy interventions?
COVID-19 and UK Public Finances
Question 2: What is the best way to (eventually) reduce public deficits and debt?
Question 1: How urgently should the UK government address the rise in public debt?
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