Nicholas Christakis | "fighting covid-19 by truly understanding the virus" | THE ECONOMIST

 

Understanding how the novel coronavirus is different is essential for identifying how society can best confront it.

"The insidious attacks on scientific truth" | Richard Dawkins THE SPECTATOR

 via Jerry Coyne

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-insidious-attacks-on-scientific-truth

Book Review: Anti-System Politics: The Crisis of Market Liberalism in Rich Democracies by Jonathan Hopkin

 https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2020/12/07/book-review-anti-system-politics-the-crisis-of-market-liberalism-in-rich-democracies-by-jonathan-hopkin/

Turkey does its own thing | Chatham House

 

Type ‘Who lost Turkey?’ into a search engine and you will find that many pundits are searching for a culprit. Versions of this question show up ...

The Next Decade Could Be Even Worse | Peter Turchin | The Atlantic

 h/t John Mauldin

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/can-history-predict-future/616993/

The Future of Democracy in Europe | Chatham House

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/03/future-democracy-europe#block-mainnavigation 

The second wave of covid-19.. | THE ECONOMIST

 ...has sent much of Europe back into lockdown

AXIOS 's Scoop: Trump's plan to declare premature victory

 President Trump has told confidants he'll declare victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he's "ahead," according to three sources familiar with his private comments.

Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Lancet 

Swiss Re : fifth of countries at risk from ecosystem collapse

 The study, which is based on Swiss Re Institute's new Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Index, shows that both developing and advanced economies are at risk. The report finds developing countries that have a heavy dependence on agricultural sectors, such as Kenya or Nigeria, are susceptible to BES shocks from a range of biodiversity and ecosystem issues.

Facts v feelings: how to stop our emotions misleading us | Tim Harford

 "... a lack of solid statistics can be dangerous. But even with the firmest of evidence, we often end up ignoring the facts we don’t like. " https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/10/facts-v-feelings-how-to-stop-emotions-misleading-us

Social Distancing Laws Cause Only Small Losses of Economic Activity

via ProMarket

"Mandating business closures in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic does not sacrifice the economy in order to save lives. When Covid-19 is spreading, staying open may bring only little extra activity. And that extra activity potentially comes at the price of increasingly spreading of the disease."

After populism | Jan Sowa, EUROZINE

Instead of looking at populists’ lies, it’s worth taking a look at the few truths they rely on:

THE ECONOMIST | "The covid-19 pandemic is forcing a rethink in macroeconomics"

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/07/25/the-covid-19-pandemic-is-forcing-a-rethink-in-macroeconomics?fsrc=newsletter&utm_campaign=the-economist-today&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=2020-07-23&utm_content=article-link-1

Why conspiracy theories soar in times of crises | Péter Krekó

From anti-vaxxers to terrorists, people often look for hidden causes which match the magnitude of the collapse they are facing. Uncertainty and public distrust are fertile ground for conspiracy theories. When used to legitimize violence, however, such narratives are more a strategy than psychopathology.

The political scar of epidemics | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal

The political scar of epidemics | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal

effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe

Nature: "This is a PDF fle of a peer-reviewed paper that has been accepted for publication. Although unedited, the content has been subjected to preliminary formatting. Nature is providing this early version of the typeset paper as a service to our authors and readers. The text and fgures will undergo copyediting and a proof review before the paper is published in its fnal form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could afect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply"

The End of World Order and American Foreign Policy

Blackwill and Wright seek to “place the plague in global context,” by analyzing the evolution of world order before COVID-19, and offer a roadmap for U.S. foreign policy in the face of “radical international uncertainty.”

The Conspiracy Theory Handbook | S. Lewandowsky & J. Cook

A must repeat-read
https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/conspiracy-theory-handbook/

and the case of The Plandemic
https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-plandemic-and-the-seven-traits-of-conspiratorial-thinking-138483

The Economist | The pandemic will leave the rich world deep in debt, and force some hard choices

" ...one way or another, the bills will eventually come due. When they do, there may not be a painless way of settling them"

Peter Turchin : "Italy Turns the Corner"

Last week my analysis of the Covid-19 epidemic in Italy yielded a very depressing result: despite all the measures taken by the government, there was no sign that they were making a difference. The epidemic was still growing exponentially with dire implications for the overall number of deaths it could cause. ... Rerunning the analysis on the more recent data (up to March 31) results in a much more optimistic conclusion. There are now clear signs that Italy has turned the corner. Here are the results:

Longer-Run Economic Consequences of Pandemics

We study rates of return on assets using a dataset stretching back to the 14th century, focusing on 12 major pandemics where more than 100,000 people died. In addition, we include major armed conflicts resulting in a similarly large death toll. Significant macroeconomic after-effects of the pandemics persist for about 40 years,  (pdf)

Mapping the Boundaries of Elite Cues: How Elites Shape Mass Opinion Across International Issues

via New York Times | The Interpreter

Despite intense interest in the nature and malleability of public opinion about foreign policy, there remains debate over when and how elite messages shape mass opinion on international issues, especially whether the informational or partisan components of elite cues dominate (pdf)

Penelope’s (In)Fidelity

a Mantinean tradition that Penelope was expelled from Ithaca on a suspicion of infidelity.

Don’t Use Taxpayer Money to Bailout Investors Like Me

When we invested in stocks and bonds, we knew we might have to face a storm or two. The high returns we received on our investments compensated us for this risk. When the government bails out a corporation, it is letting investors like me keep all the profits in good times without bearing the losses in bad times.

Also
Economics, Law and Finance Professors from Major Universities Write to Congress : “Bail Out People Before Large Corporations”

Mental models and human reasoning | Philip N. Johnson-Laird

To be rational is to be able to reason. Thirty years ago psychologists believed that human reasoning depended on formal rules of inference akin to those of a logical calculus. This hypothesis ran into difficulties, which led to an alternative view: reasoning depends on

via Nick Chater at The Conversation 

The ECB Can Save the Italian Economy and Prevent a New Euro Crisis | Olivier Blanchard

The last thing the world needs at this juncture is another euro crisis. The ECB should and can avoid it

JPMorgan forecasts a recession will rock the US and Europe by July

JPMorgan officially forecasts a coronavirus-driven recession will rock the US and Europe by July

Coronavirus & Capitalism | NYT, The Interpreter

markets do not take morality or ethics into account when distributing necessities. And poverty, inequality, discrimination, inefficiencies and imperfect information have always warped distribution of goods and services away from the smooth curves the theories predict."

A List of Women Authors from Ancient Greece and Rome for International Women’s Day

https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2020/03/08/a-list-of-women-authors-from-the-ancient-world-for-international-womens-day/

The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer

A GROWING SENSE OF INEQUITY IS UNDERMINING TRUST Since Edelman began measuring trust 20 years ago, it has been spurred by economic growth. This continues in Asia and the Middle East, but not in developed markets, where income inequality is now the more important factor. A majority of respondents in every developed market do not believe they will be better off in five years’ time, and more than half of respondents globally believe that capitalism in its current form is now doing more harm than good in the world.

Political Realignment

via http://turkishpolicy.com/article/981/political-realignment-threats-and-opportunities-for-european-liberals

A Global Political Realignment? Stephen Davies, Francis H. Buckley, Jacob T. Levy, Henry Farrell

Democratic politics sometimes changes dramatically in a short space of time. We may be living in one of those times. In his provocative lead essay, Stephen Davies argues that the forces of nationalism and populism are on the march in Britain, the Untied States, France, Germany, and many other countries. The sudden salience of the conflict between populism and continued globalization indicates that we are indeed experiencing a political realignment. Old causes and issues may fade in importance; new ones may take their place or even be settled definitively.

But is this really the case? 

Book Review: Populism by Benjamin Moffitt

n Populism, Benjamin Moffitt offers a new study that looks to assess the current state of scholarship on populism. Jake Scott finds the book goes a significant way toward providing the clarity that can be so lacking when it comes to understanding populism.

Debate on Populism at VOXEU

CEPR has started a Research and Policy Network on Populism and is now launching this VoxEU debate page on populism focusing on four broad questions:

Why We're Susceptible to Fake News, How to Defend Against it

via Fareed Zakaria

Thought processes and belief systems that people develop early in life to help protect against the anxiety and stress of an uncertain world may help explain why some individuals fall victim to what has come to be known as fake news, but psychologists can offer some strategies to defend against it, according to a series of presentations at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.

The Media Literacy Index 2019: Just think about it

findings of a new edition of the Media Literacy Index for 2019 by the European Policies Initiative (EuPI) of the Open Society Institute – Sofia. The index assesses the resilience potential to fake news in 35 European countries,


https://osis.bg/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MediaLiteracyIndex2019_-ENG.pdf

THE PAST AND FUTURE OF WORLD ORDER |Francis J. Gavin

...analysts are once again consumed with the current and future state of world order, which appears in crisis. Many have offered recommendations for what a future global order might look like and what should be done to build it. It is hard to imagine a more consequential question.

via Fareed Zakaria

Democracy and the rule of law | Centre for European Reform

Democracy and the rule of law are often, wrongly, treated as synonymous. There are increasing tensions in Europe between what governments think their voters want them to do, and what the courts and EU institutions allow them to do. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is right to say that threats to the rule of law challenge the functioning of the EU. Key EU policy areas such as the single market and law enforcement co-operation depend on respect for the rule of law throughout the Union.

Political Economy Books of 2019

Asher Schechter of the Pro-Market blog of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business suggests they are the best!

Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy by Matt Stoller

Capitalism, Alone by Branko Milanovic

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff

The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets by Thomas Philippon

The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman

The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality by Katharina Pistor

Don’t Be Evil: The Case Against Big Tech by Rana Foroohar

Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America by Christopher Leonard

Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist by Alexander Zevin

The Great Democracy: How to Fix Our Politics, Unrig the Economy, and Unite America by Ganesh Sitaraman