My monthly, globally syndicated column for Project Syndicate, translated into a dozen languages, and my earlier bi-weekly Risky Climate column for Bloomberg Green.
Whether the problem is COVID-19 or climate change, the market on its own will not produce a sufficient quantity of goods – like therapeutic drugs or environmentally sustainable growth – that benefit society. Capitalizing on America’s private-sector dynamism will require the state to create incentives to produce such “social goods.”
If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that delaying prudent policymaking does not merely result in higher marginal costs down the road. Rather, it puts us on an entirely different trajectory – one that all too easily can end in catastrophe.
Testing and taxing are important steps in the fights against the pandemic and climate change— and both have their limits.
Like climate economics, the economics of Covid-19 mean we need to take aggressive action, not incremental steps.
To make sense of the spread of Covid-19, economics—particularly black swan events and compound growth—can provide guidance.
The power of compound growth has long been recognized as essential to economic development. But in both the COVID-19 pandemic and the slower-moving climate crisis, this same mathematical force is cutting the other way, revealing dangerous shortcomings in how we manage externalities.
When considering travel and other choices, economic principles can provide guidance.
A $40 carbon dioxide price? Try $100, $200, or possibly more.
The money would go far in politics, but it will also allow for technological experimentation and will take a fundraising burden off recipients.
To drive down tomorrow’s CO₂ emissions, governments need to subsidize fossil fuel alternatives, too.