Question 3: Which would be the maximal public debt you would be willing to tolerate if used effectively (as in your answers to 1 and 2 above) to support an economic recovery?
Answer:
140% of GDP (e.g. if fiscal support were trippled)
Confidence level:
Not confident
Comment:
Very hard to guess what real interest rates will be like once this crisis is over, and so how sustainable it will be. Importantly, it depends on how long we will been on lockdown.
Question 2: Which of the following would have the second greatest impact in mitigating the economic effects of the coronavirus economic crisis in the UK?
Answer:
Making unemployment benefits more generous, streamlined, or comprehensive
Confidence level:
Extremely confident
Comment:
The social safety net has to be there for these crisis times. Moreover, if it proves to fail, the uncertainty that follows will cause a paradox-of-thrift slump (https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/9454.html)
Question 1: Which of the following would have the greatest impact in mitigating the economic effects of the coronavirus economic crisis?
Answer:
Government credit support for businesses
Confidence level:
Extremely confident
Comment:
First priority is to stop a cascade of defaults and layoffs to prevent the amplification of the crisis and a permanent impact on productive capacity. Credit as opposed to transfers/bailouts are preferred because (i) they preserve fiscal space, which will be needed very soon for the post-quarantine times and (ii) are better targeted to the problem, which is to cover costs and payments. (https://t.co/C28KajKxz1?amp=1)
In the last two questions you are asked which government policies are best suited to help the UK emerge from its productivity growth slowdown. Question 3 asks for your most preferred policy option, while question 4 asks for your second choice. You may use the comment section to outline specific policy recommendations.
Question 3: Which of the following policies would best help improve private sector productivity?
Answer:
Regulatory and competition policies, possibly including financial regulation
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
Much could be done to foster more dynamism in the UK economy, and to remove distortions in the allocation of capital.
Question 2: Which of the following was the second most important cause for the slowdown in UK productivity growth?
Answer:
Human capital including education and employee skills
Confidence level:
Not confident
Comment:
None of the other factors you list seem to me to be potentially important enough to explain it. But the UK has now for a long time relied on immigration to compensate for missing skills in its labor force.
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).
Covid-19: Economic Policy Response
Question 3: Which would be the maximal public debt you would be willing to tolerate if used effectively (as in your answers to 1 and 2 above) to support an economic recovery?
Question 2: Which of the following would have the second greatest impact in mitigating the economic effects of the coronavirus economic crisis in the UK?
Question 1: Which of the following would have the greatest impact in mitigating the economic effects of the coronavirus economic crisis?
The UK Productivity Puzzle
In the last two questions you are asked which government policies are best suited to help the UK emerge from its productivity growth slowdown. Question 3 asks for your most preferred policy option, while question 4 asks for your second choice. You may use the comment section to outline specific policy recommendations.
Question 3: Which of the following policies would best help improve private sector productivity?
Question 2: Which of the following was the second most important cause for the slowdown in UK productivity growth?
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