Pandemics and Policy

This essay presents new research that shows the importance of economic freedom—which is taken here as an indicator of institutional quality—in mitigating the damage of pandemics and epidemics.

The cross‐​country experience with COVID-19 offers little support for the notion that a more expansive, powerful, or centralized U.S. federal government would have handled this pandemic better.

Policymakers should accept the fact that COVID-19 will become endemic and adopt the vision of the harm reduction movement that grew up in response to the crisis created by drug prohibition.

Evidence and analysis refute current arguments that economic nationalism would bolster the U.S. industrial base (and thus national resiliency). Instead, American protectionism has been repeatedly found to weaken the U.S. manufacturing sector and the economy more broadly.

A host of policy decisions by politicians and regulators made the COVID-19 crisis worse, whether by facilitating the wider spread of the disease or harming economic welfare unnecessarily. Behind many bad calls lay a failure to think as a good economist would.

Both age and disability discrimination laws are full of unintended effects, including the hindering of safe reopening of workplaces during the pandemic.

Being present on a college campus was once inevitably part of obtaining a college education. COVID-19 has helped demonstrate that instruction and tutoring can be provided online.

The new immigration system has eliminated the core principles of immigration law and replaced them with the current president’s own preferences. It’s time for Congress to rectify it.

Adopting a rules-based approach to the conduct of monetary policy would help safeguard central bank independence and promote both monetary and financial stability.

“Helicopter money” is a fascinating theoretical construct that has proven useful in advancing economists’ understanding of various subtle points of monetary theory. But it risks undermining both Congress’s power of the purse and the Federal Reserve System’s already tenuous independence.

Society faces a tradeoff between greater health versus higher gross domestic product and greater freedom in choosing how much, and what kind of, social distancing policies to impose.

Because contact tracing technologies analyze sensitive information about citizens’ locations, they raise civil liberties concerns. Here’s how lawmakers can make them effective and protective of sensitive data.

International trade and cross‐​border investment produce some degree of reliance and risk, but in policymakers’ rush to indict trade and globalization, they dismiss the enormous benefits that Americans get from participating in the global economy as workers, consumers, producers, and investors.

The essential problem with the role of science in public policy is that some scientists, most politicians, and the public want science to do more than it can.

The COVID-19 pandemic made state and federal lawmakers acutely aware of how state‐​based regulation of clinicians contributes to the overall shortage of health care providers and obstructs their rapid response to public health emergencies.

What the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear in education is that one size cannot fit all, and we must not try to force it.

Economists tend to oppose price controls at the best of times, but the public’s willingness to allow market‐​set prices appears to diminish when emergencies hit.

The pandemic is a national problem, but its impact varies by region, state, and even locality and so requires tailored solutions—ones that conform with our nation’s commitment to individual rights and the rule of law.

As the nation reopens in the wake of COVID-19, we have the opportunity to ensure that economic recovery is fully shared by everyone.

The federal government was not ready for COVID-19, even though it has dealt with epidemics and pandemics for more than a century.