IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/indcch/v30y2021i2p467-497..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The pandemic economic crisis, precautionary behavior, and mobility constraints: an application of the dynamic disequilibrium model with randomness†
[A new view of technological change]

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph E Stiglitz
  • Martin M Guzman

Abstract

This article analyzes the economic impact of the pandemic, providing insights into the consequences of alternative policies. Our framework focuses on three key features: (i) The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a sectoral shock of unknown depth and duration affecting some sectors and technologies more than others; (ii) there are constraints in shifting resources across sectors; and (iii) there is a high level of uncertainty about the disease and its economic aftermath, inducing a high level of precautionary behavior by some agents and leading to others facing more severe credit constraints. Because of macroeconomic externalities, precautionary behavior exacerbates the downturn, and even sectors where COVID-19 does not directly affect consumption or production may face unemployment. Multipliers associated with different government expenditure programs differ markedly. The article describes policies that can mitigate precautionary behavior, leading to reduced unemployment. Greater wage flexibility may lead to increased unemployment.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph E Stiglitz & Martin M Guzman, 2021. "The pandemic economic crisis, precautionary behavior, and mobility constraints: an application of the dynamic disequilibrium model with randomness† [A new view of technological change]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(2), pages 467-497.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:indcch:v:30:y:2021:i:2:p:467-497.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/icc/dtab012
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David H. Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson, 2016. "The China Shock: Learning from Labor-Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 205-240, October.
    2. Dosi, G. & Pereira, M.C. & Roventini, A. & Virgillito, M.E., 2017. "When more flexibility yields more fragility: The microfoundations of Keynesian aggregate unemployment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 162-186.
    3. Nicholas Kaldor, 1955. "Alternative Theories of Distribution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 23(2), pages 83-100.
    4. Greg Kaplan & Benjamin Moll & Giovanni L. Violante, 2018. "Monetary Policy According to HANK," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(3), pages 697-743, March.
    5. Danny Yagan, 2019. "Employment Hysteresis from the Great Recession," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(5), pages 2505-2558.
    6. Geanakoplos, J. & Polemarchakis, H., 1985. "Existence,regularity, and constrained suboptimality of competitive allocations when the asset market is incomplete," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 1985037, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    7. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1988. "On the Relevance or Irrelevance of Public Financial Policy," International Economic Association Series, in: Kenneth J. Arrow & Michael J. Boskin (ed.), The Economics of Public Debt, chapter 2, pages 41-76, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. David H. Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson, 2013. "The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2121-2168, October.
    9. Sinitskaya, Ekaterina & Tesfatsion, Leigh, 2015. "Macroeconomies as constructively rational games," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 152-182.
    10. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    11. Barro, Robert J & Grossman, Herschel I, 1971. "A General Disequilibrium Model of Income and Employment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 82-93, March.
    12. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2011. "Rethinking Macroeconomics: What Failed, And How To Repair It," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 591-645, August.
    13. Robert M. Solow & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1968. "Output, Employment, and Wages in the Short Run," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(4), pages 537-560.
    14. Isabel Correia & Emmanuel Farhi & Juan Pablo Nicolini & Pedro Teles, 2013. "Unconventional Fiscal Policy at the Zero Bound," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1172-1211, June.
    15. Joseph E Stiglitz, 2018. "Where modern macroeconomics went wrong," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 34(1-2), pages 70-106.
    16. Bruce C. Greenwald & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1990. "Macroeconomic Models with Equity and Credit Rationing," NBER Chapters, in: Asymmetric Information, Corporate Finance, and Investment, pages 15-42, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Bruce C. Greenwald & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1986. "Externalities in Economies with Imperfect Information and Incomplete Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(2), pages 229-264.
    18. Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1992. "Asymmetric Information in Credit Markets and Its Implications for Macro-economics," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 44(4), pages 694-724, October.
    19. Greenwald, Bruce & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1988. "Pareto Inefficiency of Market Economies: Search and Efficiency Wage Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 351-355, May.
    20. Luigi L. Pasinetti, 1962. "Rate of Profit and Income Distribution in Relation to the Rate of Economic Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 29(4), pages 267-279.
    21. Finamor, Lucas & Scott, Dana, 2021. "Labor market trends and unemployment insurance generosity during the pandemic," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    22. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2016. "Towards a General Theory of Deep Downturns: Presidential Address from the 17th World Congress of the International Economic Association in 2014," International Economic Association Series, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-58691-9, June.
    23. Cass, David & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1969. "The Implications of Alternative Saving and Expectations Hypotheses for Choices of Technique and Patterns of Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(4), pages 586-627, Part II, .
    24. Kreps, David M, 1979. "A Representation Theorem for "Preference for Flexibility"," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(3), pages 565-577, May.
    25. Martin Guzman & Joseph E Stiglitz, 2020. "Towards a dynamic disequilibrium theory with randomness," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 36(3), pages 621-674.
    26. Atkinson, Anthony B & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1969. "A New View of Technological Change," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 79(315), pages 573-578, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Beniamino Callegari & Christophe Feder, 2022. "A Literature Review of Pandemics and Development: the Long-Term Perspective," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 183-212, March.
    2. Beniamino Callegari & Christophe Feder, 2022. "The long-term economic effects of pandemics: toward an evolutionary approach [Epidemics and trust: the case of the Spanish flu]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 31(3), pages 715-735.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giovanni Dosi & Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini & Joseph E. Stiglitz & Tania Treibich, 2020. "Rational Heuristics? Expectations And Behaviors In Evolving Economies With Heterogeneous Interacting Agents," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(3), pages 1487-1516, July.
    2. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2020. "The Pandemic Economic Crisis, Precautionary Behavior, and Mobility Constraints: An Application of the Dynamic Disequilibrium Model with Randomness," NBER Working Papers 27992, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2017. "Macro-economic Management in an Electronic Credit/Financial System," NBER Working Papers 23032, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/31dhti786q9k0q2i04klh6no54 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Eugenio Caverzasi & Alberto Russo, 2018. "Toward a new microfounded macroeconomics in the wake of the crisis," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 27(6), pages 999-1014.
    6. Stiglitz, Joseph, 2021. "Lessons from COVID-19 and Trump for Theory and Policy (Paper)," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 749-760.
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/31dhti786q9k0q2i04klh6no54 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Guerini, Mattia & Napoletano, Mauro & Roventini, Andrea, 2018. "No man is an Island: The impact of heterogeneity and local interactions on macroeconomic dynamics," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 82-95.
    9. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2011. "Rethinking Macroeconomics: What Failed, And How To Repair It," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 591-645, August.
    10. Greenwald, B & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1987. "Keynesian, New Keynesian and New Classical Economics," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 119-133, March.
    11. Gross, Marco, 2022. "Beautiful cycles: A theory and a model implying a curious role for interest," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    12. Bruce Greenwald & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1993. "New and Old Keynesians," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 23-44, Winter.
    13. Anton Korinek, 2017. "Currency wars or efficient spillovers?," BIS Working Papers 615, Bank for International Settlements.
    14. Anton Korinek, 2016. "Currency Wars or Efficient Spillovers? A General Theory of International Policy Cooperation," NBER Working Papers 23004, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1991. "Methodological Issues and the New Keynesian Economics," NBER Working Papers 3580, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Giorgio Fagiolo & Andrea Roventini, 2017. "Macroeconomic Policy in DSGE and Agent-Based Models Redux: New Developments and Challenges Ahead," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 20(1), pages 1-1.
    17. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 2019. "Addressing climate change through price and non-price interventions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 594-612.
    18. Marco Ranaldi & Elisa Palagi, 2022. "Heterogeneity in Macroeconomics: The Compositional Inequality Perspective," LIS Working papers 848, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    19. Diego Daruich & Julian Kozlowski, 2023. "Macroeconomic Implications of Uniform Pricing," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 64-108, July.
    20. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2016. "The Theory of Credit and Macro-economic Stability," NBER Working Papers 22837, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/28ldm6et9r9pbak4qpf3imo9bj is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Dosi, G. & Pereira, M.C. & Roventini, A. & Virgillito, M.E., 2017. "When more flexibility yields more fragility: The microfoundations of Keynesian aggregate unemployment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 162-186.
    23. Paulo R. Mota & Paulo B. Vasconcelos, 2018. "Does the Deregulation of the Labour Market Reduce Employment Hysteresis? An Analysis in a Low Interest Rate Environment," FEP Working Papers 611, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B22 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Macroeconomics
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:indcch:v:30:y:2021:i:2:p:467-497.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/icc .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.