The Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has fomented a moral crisis for administrations struggling to choose between “lives” and “livelihoods”, i.e. between mitigating the public health fallout and averting an economic depression. The challenge is being met, and public value trade-off...

This working paper considers the structural challenges that confront the Pakistan economy beyond the immediate impositions of contending with COVID(coronavirus). Using a general thematic approach, the paper seeks to look beyond the urgent preoccupations of COVID to grapple with the important...

The price of cryptocurrencies has been a contentious practitioner and academic question, on one hand because of its nuanced relationship to traditional finance (with challenges of mainstreaming), and on the other hand regarding its role as a hedge against hyperinflation, financial crises, and...

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has already wreaked havoc on the international economy in numerous ways, differentiating itself in particular through its impact on the “real world” economy as opposed to financial market-specific damage. Both developed and developing countries are seeking...

This paper considers the scourge of vaccine nationalism as it applies to the geopolitical/geoeconomic context of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. It identifies the frightening challenge that vaccine nationalism poses to global public health outcomes, and particularly so in the developing...

This paper seeks to highlight key issues pertaining to debt relief and moratoria under the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), including the importance of debt relief under public resource constraints in the developing world, the difficult trade-offs of capital markets access and accruing...

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had devastating global effects from both a public health and economic point of view, yet countries have shown vastly different levels of success in responding to the outbreak, even at similar levels of development. This working paper seeks to compare the...

This paper represents a collection of essays on the economics of pandemics written during the first six months of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, i.e. December 2019 – May 2020. These essays cover an array of issues ranging from lockdowns, to fiscal constraints, to monetary theory, to the...

The fervent global quest for the development of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) begs the frightening questions: who will go first in receiving it? and will everyone get to receive it at all? This working paper seeks to highlight the risk that mercantilist market-logic...

Government-citizen collaboration is recognized as an important response dynamic in pandemic relief contexts, particularly in developing countries where government efforts alone are insufficient. This paper examines the PM CARES Fund, a government-citizen contribution towards coronavirus relief...