Economists and COVID-19: The case of Argentina

The chapter describes the theoretical and economic policy positions held during the pandemic by two diverging groups of economists in Argentina: on the one hand, the government's economic team and associated professional and academic economists following the structuralist/heterodox school of thought;on the other hand, a group of heterogeneous, influential domestic economists adhering to more orthodox/liberalist economic and political ideas. The analysis presented here focuses on the diverging positions and reactions around three areas: (i) whether containment measures such as lockdowns were to be adopted permanently, and if they were the most appropriate;(ii) the evaluation of the economic relief policies being implemented;(iii) how to face the issue of financing under a dollar shortage. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Who's to blame for Greece?: Life after bankruptcy: Between optimism and substandard growth

This expanded and enlarged third edition of Theodore Pelagidis and Michael Mitsopoulos' popular Who's to Blame for Greece? covers almost a decade of Greece's economic crisis from 2009 to 2019, as well as recent developments in the first months of 2020. It provides an overview of recent developments in the Greek economy and outlines the most important obstacles to a return to robust and sustainable growth rates. It considers the new optimism being developed in Greece after the crisis, but also the policy challenges facing Greece emanating from a deeply hurt economy in the aftermath of the crisis and the structural problems that persist. The book covers the most recent issues that affect the Greek economy including, the migration crisis at the borders with Turkey as well as a faltering global economy hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. This book will appeal to researchers, practitioners and policy makers interested in the EU and the political economy of Greece and offers valuable updates on the second edition. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.

Africa's Development Debts

Public debt levels in sub-Saharan Africa rose sharply in the wake of the global financial crisis, and a number of countries are now classified by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as at high risk of debt distress. By contrast with the debt crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, however, concerns were not region wide as recently as early 2020, and the policy environment for growth remains robust for the majority of countries in the region. The external environment nonetheless poses a set of region-wide risks that include the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and are exacerbated by the increase in market-based debt and the retreat of the Paris Club among official creditors. Changes in perceived creditworthiness can now drive distress, and new challenges of creditor coordination will complicate the debt restructuring process. We motivate a research agenda that focuses on development assets at risk as rising debt service obligations crowd out development as well as operational and maintenance budgets. Preserving and enhancing these assets, which include advances in human capital and infrastructure and an improved investment environment, should be a central objective of domestic policy actions, preventative debt restructurings and institutional approaches to debt distress. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for the Study of African Economies.

Demystifying Bretton Woods Institutions' Rhetoric on Public Services.

This article reviews Bretton Woods Institutions' approach to public services, including during the recent COVID-19 crisis. Drawing on the specific case of IMF and World Bank's response to the multiple crisis triggered by the pandemic, it shows that there is a discourse-practice disjuncture in the institutions approach to public services as they continue to favour austerity and market-oriented solutions for the delivery of public services. The article therefore seeks to demystify the Bretton Woods institutions rhetoric and demand the adoption of a different way of understanding public services, and social policy more broadly.

Stock market response to COVID-19 pandemic: A comparative evidence from two emerging markets.

This paper presents the first comparative study of emerging stock markets' response to the COVID-19 pandemic with evidence from Ghana and Botswana. Using daily time-series data from March 1, 2020, to September 30, 2021, the study estimates parametric, semi-parametric and non-parametric models, and provides evidence to support the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., the total number of reported COVID-19 cases and deaths) on the stock market performances of Ghana and Botswana. Interestingly, the study shows that the impact of the pandemic on Ghana's stock market is quantitatively greater than the stock market of Botswana. The study calls for fiscal and monetary policies to help firms on the stock market to survive the shock. Going forward, measures aimed at building a robust stock market to withstand such external shocks are critical.

The Re-Emergence of Sovereign Spread in Emerging Countries in the Post-Covid-19 Economy

The Covid-19 crisis and its economic consequences for emerging countries have highlighted the role of robust, inclusive, and equitable elements of multiple contingency lines to keep these economies away from falling into a devastating cycle of rising sovereign spread. This study first summarizes the crisis-fighting performance of the IMF and eight major RFAs since the outbreak of Covid-19. Then our theoretical model focuses on the deterioration of market expectations (namely about future global economic growth, funding conditions in key currencies and public default) influence on the sovereign spread, by employing a structural panel Vector Autoregression. The results showed that sovereign spread depended not only on the global and local growth or the external funding environment but on the market sentiment as well. Also, the results pointed out the importance of financial supports by international actors like the IMF and partially the RFAs in managing the sovereign spread.

Social, Political, Psychological Impacts of Covid-19 Digitalization of the Currency and Emerging World Order

Covid-19 commonly known as Coronavirus is the biggest challenging posing threat to the international system and the way of life we know. This paper is general in nature and aims at reaching the larger audience. This academic paper enables the readership from all walks of life to understand the nature of the pandemic and its effects on our ways of life. Central objective is to highlight that change in traditional system and domestic arena is inevitable. It brings into limelight the economic challenges digitalization of the economy, probable decline of the United States (US) as a major power, challenges posed to our social culture, pre-existing social norms and the changing norms and work ethics. Paper also highlights probability of biological terrorism and weakness of our health system. For the completion of this paper authors have conducted interviews to analyse this pandemic using empirical evidence to examine Covid-19 spread, recurring fallout, intensity and its impact on the global order. Aim of this paper is to highlight significance of artificial intelligence, transformation of world economic system based on quantum computer and continued relevance of capitalism for international order. Paper emphasises states failure to adopt to changing nature of economic order will result in collapse of its economic institutions followed by political chaos and anarchy. Authors attempt to highlight geo-economic framework based on neo-liberalism is substitute to geo-strategic framework. It is a key to survive in prevailing circumstances. © 2022, World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society. All rights reserved.

Operating, financial and investment impacts of Covid-19 in SMEs: Public policy demands to sustainable recovery considering the economic sector moderating effect.

Currently, many institutions and academics are working to establish strategies of economic recovery with the aim of mitigating the short- and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 crisis. The main aim of this study is to analyze how this crisis has impacted Spanish SMEs, considering their operating, financial, and investment activities. We also analyze the initiatives or public policies that SME managers consider necessary in order to face the effects of COVID-19. To do this, an empirical study has been carried out based on information from 612 Spanish SMEs, estimating a PLS research model and multigroup analysis that considers the activity sector as a moderating variable. The results are useful to companies and different economic and social agents, providing information to facilitate decision-making to overcome pandemic crisis mainly in the economic and strategic spheres.

Comparing disciplinary engagement in global health research across the social sciences

Objectives What did social science disciplines contribute to the study of global health before the coronavirus pandemic? This article compares the contributions of four major social science disciplines-anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology-to the study of global health. Methods We assessed disciplinary contributions through analysis of Web of Science;disciplinary annual reviews;and each discipline's top two general focus journals, complemented by literature reviews. Results Of the four disciplines, anthropology and economics have contributed relatively more in quantitative terms, although qualitative contributions have been refracted through the larger histories, methods, and theoretical concerns. Although interest in global health research has grown across the disciplines, only in anthropology has it achieved a measure of prominence in top journals. Conclusion Cross-disciplinary comparison draws out how each discipline approaches global health;which topics it studies;and the topic's centrality/marginality within the broader disciplines.

A Hybrid Method of Covid-19 Patient Detection from Modified CT-Scan/Chest-X-Ray Images Combining Deep Convolutional Neural Network And Two- Dimensional Empirical Mode Decomposition.

The outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 virus in 2019-2020 has made the world look for fast and accurate detection methods of the disease. The most commonly used tools for detecting Covid patients are Chest-X-ray or Chest-CT-scans of the patient. However, sometimes it's hard for the physicians to diagnose the SARS-CoV-2 infection from the raw image. Moreover, sometimes, deep-learning-based techniques, using raw images, fail to detect the infection. Hence, this paper represents a hybrid method employing both traditional signal processing and deep learning technique for quick detection of SARS-CoV-2 patients based on the CT-scan and Chest-X-ray images of a patient. Unlike the other AI-based methods, here, a CT-scan/Chest-X-ray image is decomposed by two-dimensional Empirical Mode Decomposition (2DEMD), and it generates different orders of Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs). Next, The decomposed IMF signals are fed into a deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for feature extraction and classification of Covid patients and Non-Covid patients. The proposed method is validated on three publicly available SARS-CoV-2 data sets using two deep CNN architectures. In all the databases, the modified CT-scan/Chest-X-ray image provides a better result than the raw image in terms of classification accuracy of two fundamental CNNs. This paper represents a new viewpoint of extracting preprocessed features from the raw image using 2DEMD.

CDC's Efforts to Quantify Prescription Opioid Overdose Deaths Fall Short.

In a 2018 report titled, Quantifying the Epidemic of Prescription Opioid Overdose Deaths, four senior analysts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including the head of the Epidemiology and Surveillance Branch, acknowledged for the first time that the number of prescription opioid overdose deaths reported by the CDC in 2016 was erroneous. The error, they said, was caused by miscoding deaths involving illicitly manufactured fentanyl (IMF) as deaths involving prescribed fentanyl. To understand what caused this error, the authors examined the CDC's methodology for compiling drug-related mortality data, beginning with the source data obtained from approximately 2.8 million death certificates received each year from state vital statistics registrars. Systemic problems often begin outside the CDC, with a surprisingly high rate of errors and omissions in the source data. Using the CDC's explanation for what caused the error, the authors show why an international program used by the CDC for reporting mortality is ill-suited for compiling and reporting drug overdose deaths. Except for heroin, methadone, and opium, each of which has an individual program code, all other opioids are separated in just two program codes according to whether they are synthetic or semisynthetic/opiates. Methadone-involved deaths pose a special problem for the CDC because methadone has dual indications for treating pain and for treating opioid use disorder (OUD). In 2019, more than seven times more methadone was administered or dispensed for OUD treatment than was prescribed for pain, yet all methadone-involved deaths are coded by the CDC as involving the prescribed form of the drug. The authors conclude that the CDC was at fault for failing to recognize and correct this problem before 2016. Public policy consequences of this failure are briefly mentioned.

Let's lessen conditionality in times of force majeure events. The archaic righteousness of the policy of conditionality of international Institutions amid COVID-19.

This article investigates how international decision-making's conditionality aids countries during strenuous economic conditions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines and contrasts the European Union's conditionality policies, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank as the more influential and leading groups of institutions. The article reveals notable policy differences. As opposed to that of the IMF and WB, the EU's approach is more comprehensive and not confined to economic considerations. Those variations aside, the article draws on the same premise: expectations of compliance with the set conditions. While in-depth, structural requirements could guide ordinary decision-making and build up resilient national institutions and policies, this article questions the merits of large-scale comprehensive terms in the face of a situation created by a force majeure or a humanly uncontrollable event such as the COVID-19 pandemic. With no more initial research addressing the specific question of the application and adequacy of conditionality to force majeure emergencies or pandemic situations of the scale of COVID-19, this article argues in favor of a measured and targeted response limited to the development, design, or determination of policy choices that tackle the intended purpose. Also, for validly practical considerations that search for to ensure the better use of aid and avoid distracting or overburdening the recipient countries to the point of risking losses of devastating proportions, the article proposes to revise and limit conditionality during force majeure events to the essential aspects of transparent management of funds for the sole intended purpose. This in itself is a distinct democratic exercise of efficient and accountable public management decision-making.

The impact of COVID-19 on globalization.

Globalization has altered the way we live and earn a livelihood. Consequently, trade and travel have been recognized as significant determinants of the spread of disease. Additionally, the rise in urbanization and the closer integration of the world economy have facilitated global interconnectedness. Therefore, globalization has emerged as an essential mechanism of disease transmission. This paper aims to examine the potential impact of COVID-19 on globalization and global health in terms of mobility, trade, travel, and countries most impacted. The effect of globalization were operationalized in terms of mobility, economy, and healthcare systems. The mobility of individuals and its magnitude was assessed using airline and seaport trade data and travel information. The economic impact was measured based on the workforce, event cancellations, food and agriculture, academic institutions, and supply chain. The healthcare capacity was assessed by considering healthcare system indicators and preparedness of countries. Utilizing a technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), we calculated a pandemic vulnerability index (PVI) by creating a quantitative measure of the potential global health. The pandemic has placed an unprecedented burden on the world economy, healthcare, and globalization through travel, events cancellation, employment workforce, food chain, academia, and healthcare capacity. Based on PVI results, certain countries were more vulnerable than others. In Africa, more vulnerable countries included South Africa and Egypt; in Europe, they were Russia, Germany, and Italy; in Asia and Oceania, they were India, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey; and for the Americas, they were Brazil, USA, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. The impact on mobility, economy, and healthcare systems has only started to manifest. The findings of this study may help in the planning and implementation of strategies at the country level to help ease this emerging burden.