Pandemic Policy: A Big-Picture Lecture (Video)
I was honored to be invited to Hillsdale College to provide an overview of my work on pandemic policy and lockdowns. Modeling played a crucial role. In that sense, pandemic policy seems to have repeated many errors that afflicted economics in decades past. This lecture assesses the predictive merit of these models and their speculative attempts to manipulate and mitigate viruses through coercive policies.
My argument traces the evolution of epidemiology of traditional public health wisdom into the deployment of “non-pharmaceutical interventions” that presume all kinds of knowledge to which scientists do not have ready access. The results in this case are not different from the results of economic central planning.
Phillip W. Magness
Phillip W. Magness is Senior Research Faculty and F.A. Hayek Chair in Economics and Economic History at the American Institute for Economic Research. He is also a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He holds a PhD and MPP from George Mason University’s School of Public Policy, and a BA from the University of St. Thomas (Houston). Prior to joining AIER, Dr. Magness spent over a decade teaching public policy, economics, and international trade at institutions including American University, George Mason University, and Berry College. Magness’s work encompasses the economic history of the United States and Atlantic world, with specializations in the economic dimensions of slavery and racial discrimination, the history of taxation, and measurements of economic inequality over time. He also maintains an active research interest in higher education policy and the history of economic thought. His work has appeared in scholarly outlets including the Journal of Political Economy, the Economic Journal, Economic Inquiry, and the Journal of Business Ethics. In addition to his scholarship, Magness’s popular writings have appeared in numerous venues including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Newsweek, Politico, Reason, National Review, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
