Mohamed A. El-Erian in Project Syndicate on COVID Silver Linings...
Now is the time to look to lock in trends and conditions that will reshape our society and economy for the better over the long term. With this overarching objective in mind, here are the top six silver linings that I see.
The first is that we are living through one of the most exciting and promising periods of medical invention and innovation in history.
Second, deeper cross-border private-sector collaboration, often outside the purview of governments, is fueling this process of scientific leapfrogging.
Third, the economic disruptions resulting from the pandemic have fueled multiple private-sector efforts to collect and analyze a broader range of high-frequency data in domains extending far beyond medicine. In the economics discipline, for example,
there is a massive surge of interest in innovative new methods of measuring economic activity through granular high-frequency indicators like mobility (smartphone geolocation), electricity consumption, and retail traffic, as well as credit card usage and restaurant reservations.
Fourth, the COVID-19 shock has raised our collective awareness and sensitivity to low-probability, high-impact “tail risks.”
This speaks to a fifth silver lining. The pandemic has led country after country to run a series of “natural experiments,” which have shed light on a host of issues that go well beyond health and economics. Systems of governance and modes of leadership have come under scrutiny, revealing a wide divergence in their capacity to respond to the same large shock.
Finally, the crisis has required many companies to hold candid conversations about work-life balance, and to devise innovative solutions to accommodate employees’ needs.
But that is all the more reason to make the most out of our collective response. The challenge now is to expand and refine this list, so that we can seize the opportunities on offer and lock in more positive trends for the long term.
@Madken65 I lol’d at the work-life balance paragraph. In my experience, that’s only gotten more lopsided toward work and I’ve lost more support systems for my family. So, yeah, I don’t know what he’s on about.
By acting together, we can transform a period of deep adversity into one of shared wellbeing for us and for future generations.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/covid-silver-linings-playbook-by-mohamed-a-el-erian-2020-09