By Joshua Gans

Forthcoming, The MIT Press

We are living in a moment of unprecedented crisis. The international spread of COVID-19 and the measures taken by governments to halt transmission of the virus are happening at a scale unlike anything seen in our lifetimes. As we grapple with the implications of social distancing and the tragic loss of human life, we need resources to help us make sense of this crisis.

The MIT Press mission challenges us to meet the need for reliable information at such a time. In this spirit, we offer a new book, Economics in the Age of COVID-19 by Joshua Gans.

In this book, economist Joshua Gans steps back from the short-term chaos to take a clear and systematic look at how economic choices are being made in response to COVID-19. He outlines the phases of the pandemic economy, from containment to reset to recovery and enhancement.

The publication of this book reflects our effort to respond quickly to the need for timely information without sacrificing rigor or editorial quality. This first version, appearing on PubPub in the first weeks following the efforts to “flatten the curve” in the United States, is published with the intention of providing immediate information to readers to help them understand what is happening in the world around us. This open access version is intended to attract community response and feedback. We invite you to engage with this material, to share what you found useful, and to identify where the text could be made clearer. What perspectives are missing, and what additional research could provide useful insight? What questions do you still have after reading this material?

This manuscript was written with care, but it was also written during an evolving situation. We hope that by opening this draft to wider commentary, we can assemble a fuller picture of what we know about global pandemics, their economic effects, and how to recover from them. The formal review period for this draft will close on May 15, 2020, although the ability to leave comments will still be available after that point. After the closure of the formal review period, the author will review the comments and revise the manuscript, reflecting additional updates to the situation that may arise in the interim. This updated version of the manuscript will be published in print and eBook editions later in 2020. (A rapid eBook edition was published in April 2020 reflecting feedback received from a traditional blind peer review process.)

Please join us by leaving comments on the manuscript here, or by emailing them directly to the author at [email protected]. Feel free to share the link to this page with anyone who may be interested, whether or not they intend to leave comments. We hope that the information contained here helps you navigate through this uncertain time.

To comment, simply create a PubPub account, and sign in. As you’re reading, you can highlight the text you want to comment on, and an icon will pop up for you to write your comment inline. You can also make general comments at the end of each chapter.

Draft DOI: 10.21428/a11c83b7.c48fa91b