The Covid-19 pandemic has upended health and living standards around the world. This talk provides an overview of these effects, with a particular focus on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Economists have explained how the pandemic is likely to have different consequences for LMICs, and demanded distinct policy responses, compared to rich countries. The pandemic’s many adverse economic and noneconomic effects in terms of living standards, education, health, and gender equality appear to be unprecedented in scope and scale. The talk also reviews research on successful and failed policy responses, including the failure to ensure widespread vaccine coverage in many LMICs. Vaccines are changing the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, but in grossly uneven ways. The poorest countries continue to face considerable obstacles in both receiving and distributing doses. To limit virus transmission, its devastating impacts, and opportunities for further mutations, this must change. Until it does, nonpharmaceutical interventions such as masking must remain a priority.
Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak is a Professor of Economics at Yale University and is also the founder and faculty director of the Yale Research Initiative on Innovation and Scale (Y-RISE). He conducts field experiments exploring ways to induce people in developing countries to adopt technologies or behaviors that are likely to be welfare improving. Mobarak has several ongoing research projects in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sierra Leone. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland at College Park.
Speaker
- Professor Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak (Yale)
- Maha Rehman (Lahore University of Management Sciences)
Chair
- Ali Cheema (Lahore University of Management Sciences, Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives, Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan)
All welcome.
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