Book Reviewed: Economics in the Age of COVID-19 by Joshua Gans

Economic choices during a health crisis

In this book, the University of Toronto economics professor Joshua Gans analyzes economics of Covid-19 pandemic. The principle question addressed here is how to balance the economy and the public health crisis. What epidemiological model should we use? Covid-19 impacts different demographics in different ways, and compounding the problem is the information flow or the lack of it made it harder. At the beginning of the pandemic, it was stated that the virus affects older population, but later we learnt that it also affects younger population with equal ferocity. The actual number of death reported for wealthy countries does not help. It should be based on percentage of population and the economic diversity of the community.

The author suggests government could lend loans to its citizens during a pandemic to ease the economic burden, and repayment of loans to the government over time through taxation. But this leads to massive bureaucracy, and such a model may work for few wealthy countries. The AIDS epidemic in Africa which devastated an entire generation depleted the workforce and hampered the economic development. Prioritizing the economy over health is not necessarily a wise choice. The author also suggests that an international harmonized response would help. But organizations like United Nations and World Health Organizations have become a strong ally of China which is mainly responsible for this global pandemic. Except for United States, no other country is calling for actions against China which may have committed criminal acts.

This book is written in hurried fashion since much of epidemiology of Covid-19 is not well understood. The author does not have any academic publications in peer reviewed journals in the economics of public health that calls for closer scrutiny of his ideas.