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Dear Colleague,
It's been a long time since you received our weekly F&D newsletter. Rest assured, however, we are back. Our summer 2020 issue, produced by a team of teleworkers, was just printed and published. In this edition, we focus on economic policymaking and politics in light of the pandemic. But first, a little backstory.
"Five months ago we set out to write an issue about political economy—how politics affects the economy and the economy affects politics. Few suspected then that, instead of exploring an academic question, we would be witnessing real-world political economy dynamics unfolding, tragically, in real time," writes editor-in-chief Gita Bhatt. "The pandemic, with its appalling loss of life, has brought the Great Lockdown and frozen the wheels of commerce. People’s lives have been turned upside down, punctuated by furloughs, facemasks, and fear."
Bhatt continues: "While this health crisis reoriented our focus, the issue of political economy is more relevant than ever. It underscores the notion that policies are made not just on the basis of economic analysis but under the influences of non-economic social and political forces. And it compels us to think about how people and the economy will adjust in a post-pandemic world."
We hope you find this curated collection of cutting-edge research, analysis and insight meaningful and action-oriented.
- In “Beyond the Crisis,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva explains how we can take advantage of this opportunity to build a better world
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Harvard’s Jeff Frieden writes that understanding political economy can be a powerful tool for those interested in changing governments and societies
- History shows COVID-19’s economic fallout may be with us for decades, writes Òscar Jordà, Sanjay R. Singh, and Alan M. Taylor in “The Long Economic Hangover of Pandemics”
- In “Lifelines in Danger,” the IMF’s Antoinette Sayeh and Ralph Chami write that the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to dry up remittance flows—a vital source of income for poor and fragile countries
- In “Embracing Identity,” LSE’s Andrés Velasco writes that broadly shared identity can be the basis for the sense of shared destiny that is at the core of good politics
- A focus on scientific consensus, technology and climate change are critical pillars of the international order after COVID-19, write the IMF's Era Dabla-Norris, Vitor Gaspar and Kalpana Kochhar
- Six prominent thinkers including Daniel Susskind, Ian Bremmer and Sharan Burrow reflect on how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world
- Past debt crises can teach developing economies to cope with COVID-19 financing shocks, write the World Bank’s M. Ayhan Kose, Franziska Ohnsorge, Peter Nagle, and Naotaka Sugawara in “Caught by a Cresting Debt Wave”
Also in this issue, we profile MIT’s J-PAL—Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab—where Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo are reinventing development economics. Paul Tucker, author of "Unelected Power", discusses central bank independence. "In the Trenches" features an interview with former Medellín mayor Federico Gutiérrez on how prioritizing security and sustainability paved the way for a 21st century city. We also cover tax-based fiscal consolidation and why the 21st century is set to be one of massive disruptions.
Finally, the interdisciplinary field of political economy owes its emergence to Alberto Alesina, a great scholar who passed away on May 23. Our Chief Economist Gita Gopinath reflects on Alesina’s far-reaching influence.
Every week for the next few months, we'll dig deeper into each article above and more, collect feedback from experts like yourself, and spark a larger conversation by spotlighting your thoughts in upcoming newsletters. As always, to encourage a global dialogue, this issue will soon be available in español, français, عربي, русский, 中文 and 日本語.
Thank you again very much for your interest in F&D. We really appreciate your time. If you have any questions, comments or feedback of any kind on this issue, please do write me a note. I would love to hear from you.
Take good care,
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