Economics | Penn Today

Person walking along Locust Walk seen through the bars of a railing of a campus building

Higher education system faces the inequities COVID-19 exposes

With pandemic budget cuts looming, Penn GSE’s Laura Perna says policymakers should prioritize low-income college students.

Selfie of a person wearing a face mask holding up a box of vegan pastries in their bakery

Penn Law’s key role in Pennsylvania 30 Day Fund for small businesses

Penn Law and Wharton MBA students put their new skills to practice to help draft the Pennsylvania 30 Day Fund, which allocates forgivable loans to small businesses impacted by the pandemic’s economic downturn.

A cautionary tale about Medicaid work requirements

A historical analysis of welfare requirements show large spillover effects among those not actually subject to such work requirements.

screen shot of virtual panel on Penn Wharton Business Model

What are the economic and health effects when states reopen?

New Penn Wharton Budget Model predicts 212,000 additional deaths related to the coronavirus but the recouping of around 18 million jobs by July 15 if all states fully reopen.

Child standing with a hand in an open cabinet in what appears to be a kitchen. A clock on the stove nearby reads 3:26.

To keep firearms safe from children, look to behavioral economics

Mental shortcuts and cognitive biases may factor into whether a gun gets locked up, separate from ammunition. New findings suggest several ways to positively influence this behavior.

Person crosses at an intersection wearing a protective face mask in front of a boarded up Valentino storefront

From apocalypse to supernova: How the pandemic is changing U.S. retail

Experts at Wharton weigh in on the effect a global pandemic has had on the retail sector, and predict an overhaul in retail, with a new kind of industry emerging after this decline.

Unemployment rate reaches 14.7% – here’s what to watch

Jeremy Siegel of the Wharton School said future economic growth in the U.S. depends on the development of vaccines and treatments for COVID-19. “If we get therapeutics that reduce the severity of this disease to a bad flu or a vaccine that could inoculate the at-risk members of the community, again that reduces that fear, [then] I think 2021 can be a boom year,” he said.

Not practicing social distancing, people walk down the street in close quarters wearing masks.

Penn Wharton Budget Model projects reopening states early could cause up to 233,000 extra deaths

The Penn Wharton Budget Model analyzed the health and economic effects of states both partially and fully reopening schools, businesses and restaurants.

Economics, not politics, helps explain why coronavirus and other diseases started in China

PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel and Scott Moore of the School of Arts & Sciences wrote about why many highly infectious diseases appear to originate in China. “First, rapid development in highly biodiverse regions brings more people into contact with exotic animals and the viruses that lurk within them,” they wrote. “Second, ever-more-extensive transport, trade and communications links continue to shorten the distances between a potential pandemic hot spot and virtually any other point on the globe.”

Even the best case for coronavirus deaths is worse than Trump says, according to a new Wharton model

The Wharton School’s Kent Smetters commented on the School’s new Budget Model, which explores the health and economic effects of state reopenings. On the low end, the model predicts 2.3 million coronavirus cases and 117,000 deaths by the end of June. On the high end, the model predicts 8 million cases and 350,000 deaths by then. “If states fully reopen, that could be the worst-case number,” said Smetters.

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