Why solving the information problem should be at the core of our pandemic response: essential reading about the long-term implications of our current crisis.
COVID-19 is caused by a virus. The COVID-19 pandemic is caused by a lack of good information. A pandemic is essentially an information problem: this is the enlightening and provocative idea at the heart of this book. If we solve the information problem, argues economist Joshua Gans, we can defeat the virus. For example, when we don't know who is infected, we have to act as if everyone is infected. If we actively manage the information problem--if we know who is infected and with whom they had contact--we can suppress the virus or buy time for vaccine development.
This is an expanded version of an eBook originally published as Economics in the Age of COVID-19.
- ISBN10 0262539128
- ISBN13 9780262539128
- Publish Date 10 November 2020
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher MIT Press Ltd
- Imprint MIT Press
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 160
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780262539128