Abstract:
In the current global crisis, many people have called for the kind of international economic cooperation evident during and after the Global Financial Crisis, cooperation which has been sadly lacking since the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic. But what would such cooperation involve? Our four speakers will aim to provide some answers, drawing on papers forthcoming in a special issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy on Covid-19 Economics (see https://academic.oup.com/oxrep/pages/About). Cameron Hepburn, a former Australian Rhodes Scholar, is Professor of Environmental Economics at Oxford University and Director of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. He will speak on climate economics, the possibility of a green post-Covid recovery, and the UN Climate Change Conference, due to take place in Glasgow in November 2021 (COP26). Beata Javorcik is Professor of Economics at All Souls College, Oxford, and currently Chief Economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. She will discuss the severe contractions to trade finance already caused by Covid-19 and the resulting reductions in international trade, and will consider the protectionist pressures which Covid-19 is causing and the actions needed at the WTO to prevent these from gathering strength. Warwick McKibbin, AO, FASSA, is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University. He will talk about the enhanced fiscal support which is now required in many emerging market economies, measures which would parallel the fiscal support already provided by most advanced economies, but which financial markets have prevented from taking place. Warwick will also discuss the G20 leadership, and IMF backing, which would be needed if such policies were to be adopted. Christopher Adam is Professor of Development Economics at Oxford University, and a Visiting Scholar at the IMF. He is also a member of the research programme on macroeconomic policy in low-income countries, conducted jointly by the IMF and the UK’s Department for International Development. His talk will describe the very difficult macroeconomic adjustment which Covid is forcing on countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and outline the additional aid and debt relief which these countries now desperately need. The Panel will be chaired by David Vines, Director of the Globalisation and Trade program in CAMA, a graduate of Melbourne University, who is Emeritus Professor of Economics at Balliol College in Oxford. At the time of the Global Financial Crisis he was the Research Director of the European Union’s Framework Seven PEGGED Research Programme on Global Economic Governance which brought together a number of economists to provide policy advice during that earlier period of turmoil.