on the evening of march 30, the united nations sustainable development solutions network (sdsn) held an international webinar on “the epidemiology and economics of coronavirus”. this event sought to examine the implications of covid-19 for public health and the sdgs, and make recommendations on policy responses.
experts from around the world were invited to the webinar, including: martin mühleisen, director of the strategy, policy, and review department of the international monetary fund; alison p. galvani, director of the center for infectious diseases modeling and analysis of yale school of public health; jun byung-yool, professor and dean of the graduate school of health industry of cha university; jeffrey sachs, chair of the international academic committee of the institute for sustainable development goals of tsinghua university (tusdg), director of the sdsn and professor of economics at columbia university; gao yuning, associate professor of the school of public policy and management of tsinghua university, and key researcher of tusdg. they provided a comprehensive analysis of the ongoing global pandemic with four emphases on: status of the epidemic, protocols of control measures, economic impacts and management, and prospects on treatments and vaccines.
prof. jeffrey sachs making presentation
professor jeffrey sachs made a presentation titled “some economics of fighting covid-19”, in which he pointed out fiscal supports need to be given to front-line medical services, urgent social support during the lockdown, as well as financing for national budgets, states, cities and companies. the top priority at the moment is to cut the transmission of the virus, while developing effective therapeutics and vaccines, to control the virus eventually. he stressed that the shutdown stage brings enormous economic losses to countries, therefore it should last no more than 90 days ideally, and even less if possible. according to his rough guesstimates, output losses at this stage might be in 20-40 percent, and tax revenue losses might be 50 percent or higher; annual output losses might be 10-15 percent, and tax revenue losses more than 20 percent. budget deficits will therefore increase by much more than 10 percent of gdp. in face of the complicated economic challenges, the suggested financing instruments include but are not limited to large-scale sovereign borrowing, imf financial instruments, urgent mdb concessional covid-19 financing, debt standstill on developing countries’ sovereign debts. finally, he warned that we must avoid a self-fulfilling run on government and corporate debt that occurs through downgrades by rating agencies and by financial market panic.
assoc. prof. gao yuning making presentation
associate professor gao yuning shared his views on the “impact of covid-19 on chinese economy and policy responses”. he demonstrated that multiple economic activity indexes were in sharp decline under the impact of covid-19, especially amid the lockdown. small and micro-enterprises have been highly injured, facing challenges of plummeting annual revenue, cash flow breakdown, and layoffs. thus, the core goal of this year’s macroeconomic policies should be to stabilize the employment. as for sector scenarios, two of the industries that suffer the most are amusement and recreation activities, and food and beverage services. thus, the central government has implemented a package of monetary, fiscal, and land policies to mitigate the losses: the central bank has increased the quota of refinancing and rediscount by 500 billion yuan to support the small and micro-enterprises; the state council has speeded up in issuing local government bonds and special treasury bonds to support the work resumption; the authority of turning permanent basic farmland into construction land has been issued by the state council to 8 pilot provinces (4 municipalities included) for 1 year. in addition, china is investing in the development of “new infrastructure projects” (such as 5g, big data centers, artificial intelligence, industrial internet, ultra-high voltage grid, etc.) in order to boost the recovery and growth of economy.
in the q&a session, experts had an in-depth discussion on how developing countries should respond with macroeconomic policies to the economic stagnation, unemployment and inflation brought by the epidemic. professor jeffrey sachs commented that the “new infrastructure projects” that china is developing are sustainable industries for the future, and are worth considering for countries currently facing economic challenges.
over the webinar, experts and scholars from china, us, brazil, spain, italy, korea and other countries briefed on the status of the epidemic in their countries and on the government responses. just as professor jeffrey sachs said in his ending remarks: “we absolutely need the global connectivity, compassion and cooperation to bring this horrible episode to a fast and successful resolution, success relative to the disasters and stresses and tragedies that are unfolding.”
below are the powerpoint slides of associate professor gao yuning in his presentation on the “impact of covid-19 on chinese economy and policy responses” for your information.
welcome to watch the webinar online by clicking the link below: