The number of economic papers on Coronavirus is multiplying almost as quickly as the # of infections. Here is a link to NBER research on the topic. https://www.nber.org/wp_covid19.html  and here is a link to David Levine’s resource at EUI http://www.covid-19-research-conduit.org/category/resources/articles/ /1

There are also a fast multiplying number of high quality online seminars on the topic. For those of my colleagues who are engaged in this research: I have some questions. Most of the models I have seen to date follow the following strategy. 2/

Take a favorite model that the researcher was working with before the crisis and combine it with an epidemiological model. There is nothing wrong with this strategy and it may well lead to useful inputs to social policy. The ... 3/

... mathematical models I have seen so far, however, are not likely to lead to immediate policy prescriptions over and above the insights provided by a basic training in economics ideas. Longer term, they may help us with the next epidemiological crisis and that is valuable. 4/

In my recent books I have argued that economic paradigm shifts are triggered by big natural experiments. The Great Depression, the Great Stagflation and the 2008 Financial Crisis are examples. Coronavirus is, IMO, the mother of all natural experiments. 5/

We have seen nothing this big since the Black Death. So I have a suggestion. We are about to see the biggest supply contraction since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Soon, we will have a wealth of data on employment, output and prices. 6/

What do you expect to happen and why? What are your core beliefs about the way the macroeconomy works? Is there any possible sequence of events in the coming months and quarters that would cause you to revise these core beliefs? 7/7