The Side Effects of Social Distancing (Ep. 409)

The Side Effects of Social Distancing (Ep. 409)

In just a few weeks, the novel coronavirus has undone a century's worth of our economic and social habits.. So we thought we'd call a few economists whose past research indicates they might have some insights into the future that's being crafted right now by the extraordinary changes we're all living through.. I'm a professor of economics at Stanford University.. Marshall BURKE: My name is Marshall Burke .. I'm an environmental economist, so I study how changes in the environment shape a range of human outcomes - health outcomes, economic outcomes, livelihoods more broadly.. We'll talk about the sudden spike in working from home and online learning; about the super-volatile stock markets - and, believe it or not, one silver lining in the black pandemic cloud.. BLOOM: Left-tail risk is very bad outcomes.. And then there are people that are hourly pay that I think life is substantially harder still for, because they've also got to go out and work, which puts them at higher exposure risk.. BLOOM: I mean, unfortunately, when you look at recessions generally, the lower-skilled, lower-paid do much worse.. So as we speak on March 12th, the S&P 500 fell almost