Question 1: Which of the following best reflects your opinion on the following statement? “The ECB should explicitly state that it will allow inflation to temporarily exceed the 2% target following extended periods of low inflation.”
Answer:
Strongly agree
Confidence level:
Extremely confident
Comment:
A maximum rate of inflation was never a coherent target. The central bank was unable to guarantee that it would meet such a target and such a target isn't desirable. An upper bound perhaps made sense for a young central bank attempting to gain credibility, but certainly not a central bank entering its third decade and finding it hard to increase inflation expectations.
Question 3: To what extent will school closures increase gender inequality due to unequal gender distribution of the burden of school closures?
Answer:
To a small degree but persistently
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
The burden of school closures has fallen very unequally along gender lines. This will clearly cause an increase in gender inequality on the margin and this damage may be permanent without mitigating policy measures. It is hard to assess the magnitude of this damage with current data. My hunch is that the social forces pushing for greater gender inequality will contain the damages, but larger damages are possible depending on the duration of the pandemic.
Question 2: To what extent will school closures increase inequality in human capital development?
Answer:
By a large amount and persistently
Confidence level:
Not confident
Comment:
Schools have been closed for roughly one third of a year. Evidence from summer holidays is clear that closures cause a lot of forgetting, so that the damage to less advantaged pupils without home schooling resources is already roughly equivalent to one year of lost school. This contrasts with higher income pupils in private education, who received numerous hours of online lessons during this time. It is very likely that schools will be closed again in the fall. The government has made a conscious decision that opening (and subsidising!) pubs and restaurants is more important than children's education. These hasty policies risk a second wave that will likely lead to further school closures. The damage to the education of low-income children is irreparable.
Question 1:What damage will school closures have on economic growth over a 10-15 year horizon?
Answer:
Minor
Confidence level:
Not confident
Comment:
While school closures have certainly been damaging to pupils education, and HMG has done very little to mitigate this damage, it is very difficult to estimate the costs to economic growth.
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).
Should the ECB Reformulate its Inflation Objective?
Question 1: Which of the following best reflects your opinion on the following statement? “The ECB should explicitly state that it will allow inflation to temporarily exceed the 2% target following extended periods of low inflation.”
The Economic Cost of School Closures
Question 3: To what extent will school closures increase gender inequality due to unequal gender distribution of the burden of school closures?
Question 2: To what extent will school closures increase inequality in human capital development?
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?
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