A thread on my sense of the immediate #policypriorities for @JoeBiden & @KamalaHarris administration, to undo the most consequential damages wrought by the last 4 years. A journalist’s question forced me to think about #economicpolicy, so I thought I'd get your reactions. [1/9]
First, bring #COVID under control. There’s no lives vs livelihoods tradeoff. Economy will move only when the virus is contained. Rich people need to feel comfortable to go out, to spend money. They hold back due to fear of contracting COVID, not due to any #lockdown [2/9]
The strategies are simple: Lead by example to instill a sense of civic duty. Inspire citizens to wear masks and make small sacrifices to protect each other. Put the amazing US #publichealth talent in charge to develop robust testing, tracing [3/9] cnn.com/2020/11/03/afr…
Middle and lower-income folks need economic stimulus. Our infrastructure quality is deteriorating, both in absolute terms and relative to rest-of-the-world. Connect the two. Get people to work on infrastructure projects, but designed in ways to protect health during pandemic. 4/9
Making the US appear unwelcome to the world’s talent was Trump's single-most damaging achievement. We’ll pay for this in 20-25 years if future Googles & Teslas are founded in Germany/Canada instead of US. #ImmigrationPolicy should be reversed immediately. economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/imm…
Luckily, due to a failure of governance, they set damaging immigration restrictions by Executive Order, which should be easy to overturn quickly, in the interest of economic growth. Important to set a clear tone that makes global talent feel welcome [6/9]
Reverse the rollback of pollution regulations. All reasonable estimates of the net benefits of Clean Air Act amendments reach trillions of dollars. Scientists, economists should lead on climate change policy. Also reverse rollbacks of consumer protection and antitrust legislation
To maintain pressure on China, build back our global alliances with Canada, Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia. Allies need to speak in a unified voice to properly pressure China on any unfair practices and human rights violations in Xinjiang. And Myanmar's oppression of Rohingya
Health reform is complex because cost of delivering healthcare is simply too high. Artificial restrictions on supply of medical professionals (US med schools and immigrants). Insane costs of bringing drugs to market. This is a sector where de-regulation can improve matters. [9/9]

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More from @mushfiq_econ

16 Jun
#COVID spreads through human-to-human transmission, so #migrants are an important vector. In the absence of adequate covid tests in LMICs, can we predict sub-national COVID spread, or identify likely hotspots using data on migration?

Short answer: Yes.
yrise.yale.edu/using-migratio…
Data on airport returnees predict subsequent quarantines & #COVID19 distress calls across districts in #Bangladesh. Data on migration permits predict confirmed cases in #Philippines municipalities and Bangladeshi sub-districts.
Beyond the validation using public health data, our recent phone surveys across Bangladesh helps to ground-truth this approach:
Living in communities with recent #migrant returnees triples the odds (!) of reporting #COVID symptoms. This is the single largest risk factor.
Read 5 tweets
12 May
Nearly a million #Rohingya refugees reside in densely packed camps in Coxbazar, Bangladesh. We conducted surveys of representative samples of refugees and Bangladeshi hosts living near camps after #COVID19 crisis hit. Alarming findings out in @WHOBulletin: who.int/bulletin/onlin…
Both hosts and refugees face significant economic distress.
59% of hosts and 72% of refugees unable to buy essential items.
Sharp decrease in employment: 76% of males in host communities were employed in July 2019, but only 21% today.
Coauthors: Paula Lopez-Pena @caustindavis
25% of Rohingyas and 13% of hosts report at least one COVID symptom (defined as per WHO guidelines).
Many are high-risk w/ underlying disease.
Economic vulnerability doubles the odds of COVID symptoms.
Living in communities with recent migrant returnees triples the odds.
Read 7 tweets
8 May
A @dawn_com op-ed accuses me of valuing #Pakistani lives less than American lives because our paper (foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/10/poo…) uses VSL. The following 3 tweets explain in plain English (as the writer requests) why this is a gross misrepresentation.
Richer people can afford to stay at home. Both this journalist and I can work from home, and even if not, we're willing to sacrifice our economic livelihoods to avoid the risk of contracting COVID. Because even with pay-cuts, we can still easily put food on the table
A poor day-wage laborer in Pakistan, in contrast, is willing to forego less of his economic livelihood, because staying at home in a shutdown means that his family may not have enough to eat.
Read 6 tweets
14 Oct 19
You've heard about the Econ Nobelists’ contributions, but I’d like to share anecdotes on the personal impact that the trio have had on so many. Their humanity should not get overshadowed by their brilliance. They are excellent humans, first and foremost. vox.com/future-perfect…
In 2001 I was in the UMD Ph.D. program which had no faculty listing “development econ” as their primary field. I had no exposure to modern devo. #AbhijitBanerjee stopped by my poster at a @WIDER conf in Helsinki, and politely, gently explained that what I was doing was not great.
That was the most important 20 minutes of my Ph.D. educ. This is taking nothing away from my incredibly supportive PhD advisors who were in other fields

Abhijit and I were on same flight back, and he came back to Economy class to sit with me for an hour to chat! I learnt a lot
Read 9 tweets
12 May 19
My thoughts on Bangladesh’s economic progress relative to India/Pakistan, in response to @AtifRMian's question posed to me. 13-tweet thread follows.[Warning: these thoughts are of Twitter-length & depth, not the level at which academics normally engage on such complex questions]
1. From macro data, the 2 proximate causes are our 2 biggest exports: (a) Garments and (b) Humans (i.e. remittances), both of which contribute large shares of GDP. [Not "exporting people to India", as trolls claim in Atif's thread, but remittance receipts from ME, SEA and Europe]
2. Why did the garment sector take off? Our comparative advantage has been low-wage labor. Women, who had traditionally not worked outside the home, and therefore had poor outside options, work at lower wage in B’deshi factories than their counterparts in competing countries.
Read 14 tweets

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