Dr. Campbell Harvey on the Future of the Economy and the Recovery

Gridlock Break

Campbell R. Harvey is a professor of finance at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He served as President of the American Finance Association in 2016. Today, he discusses the most pressing economic decisions facing America in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, what we can learn from the responses of other countries, and how his original forecasts have changed as the crisis has progressed.

This crisis allows us to see the future through the experiences of countries that were hit before the United States - like China, South Korea, and Sweden - and to consider their approaches in determining our own. According to Dr. Harvey, different parts of the country will have to draw different lessons from abroad that cater to individual demographics, densities, ages, and risk levels. He also explains that while his original economic forecast for the rest of the year was bleak, he thinks the public’s lockdown fatigue may encourage economic growth to pick up more quickly. He also thinks more good news on creating a vaccine could really accelerate that growth.

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