Ed Lazear & Niall Ferguson: COVID-19: Today’s Historic Jobs Report | Hoover Virtual Policy Briefing

Recorded May 8, 2020, 11AM PST

Hoover Institution Fellows Edward Lazear and Niall Ferguson: COVID-19: Today’s Historic Jobs Report

The Hoover Institution presents an online virtual briefing series on pressing policy issues, including health care, the economy, democratic governance, and national security. Briefings will include thoughtful and informed analysis from our top scholars.

ABOUT THE FELLOWS
Edward P. Lazear is the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Davies Family Professor of Economics at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. Lazear served at the White House from 2006 to 2009, where he was chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Chicago.

Niall Ferguson, MA, D.Phil., is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior fellow of the Center for European Studies, Harvard, where he served for twelve years as the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History. He is also a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation Distinguished Scholar at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

[angelo]

Voices of sanity in a world griped by mass panic a rise of big brother. Thank you.

[tedwards]

I consider myself a Progressive, but I am slowly changing over to your way of looking at the world.

[vanessa]

Niall Ferguson's Ascent of Money book is amazing. I love his interview on Berkeley's "Conversation with History." President Trump's earlier on concern is warranted: The cure is going to prove far worse than the disease.

[mikehardwicke]

How can we use the Stock Market as an indicator given the Fed Printing? PEs are still way above 10yr averages or forward estimates?

[da-n-ny]

Re, collecting unemployment motivator. If I am not mistaken in most states if you quit your job (or fired) you cannot collect unemployment. Some states even go back years to see if you quit another job to disqualify you? Not sure if this would act as "demotivator", as there would be a need for awareness.

[getknit]

Just anecdotes - two people elated stories to me this week that they can't get people back to work because the gov't handouts are just too good to pass up.

[freespirit]

All these discussions much appreciated. Thanks!

[walid]

The problems in the US started way before the Covid-19 crisis. Wealth inequality was growing, 7 million people defaulted in their car loans, the gig economy grew in size, healthcare is eating up in the saving capacity of the workers and 45% of the population does not have a 500$ emergency fund.
Covid-19 just accelerated the problem.

[serdarerden]

It’s very easy to conduct such a conversation with similar right wing thinkers. Niall Ferguson, to me, should also focus on Trump administration’s terrible mismanagement of the epidemic. However, his ideology doesn’t allow him to criticise Trump. The second issue, Mr Ferguson is not epidemiologist and has no idea about the rising children cases across The US and Europe affected by the virus. The US is in a big trouble thanks to the mismanagement of your ideological comrades in the power!

[skulleliete]

I don't see any reason we can't go right back up. After all this drop is not caused by the market itself.

[herbertvonsauerkrautunterh]

Vaccine yes.. but forcing that in people by making it conditional, no..!!

[andrewbaldwin]

BMO economist Doug Porter noted that the U.S. participation rate fell by 2.5 ppts to 60.2% from March to April; this is the first time since 2002 that the U.S. participation rate is higher than Canada’s, which fell by 3.7 ppts to 59.8%. This is also the first time since January 2015 that the US unemployment rate (UR) unadjusted for seasonal variation (14.4%) is higher than the Canadian alternative UR, R3 (12.1%), which is comparable to the US UR, and there has not been a stronger positive divergence since January 2011. If the participation rate in the US had been as strong as in Canada, the rise in the US unemployment rate would not have been so scary. Why there was a much stronger drop in the participation rate in Canada than in the US is a subject for study, but I suspect the very much criticized upbeat tone taken by President Trump in his daily briefings as opposed to the decidedly downbeat tone taken by PM Trudeau counts for something.

[billallen]

No discussion of Federalism vs Central Planning. Pity. Are not (no, not R naught) States largely responsible for being prepared?

[Vgallo]

How come no one at Hoover is asking Niall about the problems with his modelling? Also about his breaching of the rules he suggested. Also how can I find out when these will be live so I can submit my questions so they’re actually heard?

[johnsnow]

Is there a sound engineer that can give some free advice to all the people working remotely on how they can improve the sound quality of their content. Microphone options and setups. I am astounded by the decrease in sound quality everywhere. Tin can and string went out long time ago. Other than that good content.

[greenbeanfroggy]

Niall is wrong about lockdown policy because:
1 Taiwan is a small country with only 20 million people, US has 380 million
2 Infectious number in Taiwan is below 100 so contact tracing could be done, however, there are more then 10 thousands cases in US in mid-March, and dispersed everywhere, contact-tracing is impossible
3 Taiwan and Singapore use similar methods, Taiwan was successfull but Singapre number skyrocketed.
4 people in US don't wear masks in March and early April, and the fact is that US don't have enough masks for everyone
I think lockdown is a fantastic policy, it's naive to think US can learn anything from Taiwan, that's totally absurd.

[br]

Consumer spending should diverge from the negative GDP trends because of the massive transfer payments.

The unemployment now is different from the Great Depression because the large majority of the unemployed expect to return to the same employer.

Some Asian economies seem to be on track for roughly flat growth in 2020. How likely is a large dispersion in growth between economies, given the shock is the same for all, namely, the pandemic?

[stephenbrady]

I generally don’t buy the Keynesian/equation driven answers to Econ questions. My worry is how we provide clear signals to producers to allow them to coordinate activity. If I was a producer, I would be scared s**tless right now. There are so many raw resources that are going to waste. Also, when people accept the new risks and begin to demand goods, how awful are shortages going to be? I don’t know who at Hoover is more classical/Austrian in their leanings, but i would love to see an answer to this question. A politically unpalatable answer would be a day when govts state, local, fed, would promise not to have anymore meddling with lockdowns, shutdowns, or capacity limits on business.

[stephenbrady]

If these guys are right, the economy is bleeped. This and the collective suffering of house arrest, isolation, and just lack of any human rights or dignity is making our shutdown look really stupid (obviously most of the social phenomena is priced into the mrkt). We probably should have just priced on increased risk levels and went on living somewhat normally.

[mikehardwicke]

No - it goes after the Metabolically sick, not the elderly. Reforming dietary advice would have a far greater impact than expensive and questionably effective vaccines!