Actions Panel

LEANZ Webinar – Panel Discussion on Limiting COVID’s Economic Fallout

By LEANZ

Date and time

Wed, 27 May 2020 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM NZST

Location

Zoom

Join Zoom Meeting: https://comcom.zoom.us/j/95762770565 Meeting ID: 957 6277 0565

Description




The Law and Economics Association of New Zealand (LEANZ) invite you to a lunchtime webinar panel discussion with Richard Meade, Eric Crampton and Andreas Heurser on limiting COVID's economic fallout.


Title: Limiting COVID's economic fallout

Discussants:

  • Richard Meade, Cognitus Economic Insight
  • Eric Crampton, New Zealand Initiative
  • Andreas Heuser, Castalia

Date: Wednesday 27 May 2020

Time: 12:00-1:00 pm NZT

Hosting: The webinar will be hosted courtesy of the Commerce Commission, via its Zoom facilities (sorry, BYO refreshments!). Zoom access details:

Join Zoom Meeting: https://comcom.zoom.us/j/95762770565

Meeting ID: 957 6277 0565


About the topic

The COVID19 pandemic, and governments’ responses to contain it, have presented policymakers with economic challenges that are both monumental and for which the guide book is still being written. The challenges facing New Zealand continue to require urgent attention and debate. In this webinar, the first of possibly many for LEANZ, three economists discuss their solutions for the challenges they see as most pressing:


  • Richard Meade – discusses why direct wage subsidies won’t protect jobs, that a more sustainable and equitable solution requires both businesses and households being able to borrow against their own futures in a low-cost way, and why more lives will be lost than the lockdowns have saved if this solution is not implemented soon
  • Eric Crampton – discusses the imperative to scale up contact tracing, models for how best to reopen New Zealand’s borders (including for tertiary education institutes), and the importance of a return to fiscal prudence after a budget taking on billions on new expenditure of questionable merit
  • Andreas Heuser - discusses the impending liquidity crunch that could hit firms and the potential impacts on provision of credit. He compares New Zealand’s business support response to responses in other countries


About the speakers

Dr Richard Meade is Principal Economist at Cognitus Economic Insight, Senior Research Fellow at Auckland University of Technology, and Vice President Auckland of LEANZ. He brings microeconomic insights for addressing the economy-wide implications of covid. In particular, his proposed loans scheme for businesses and households seeks to address perverse incentives plaguing other support mechanisms deployed to date both in New Zealand and overseas, and recognises that households can’t thrive without healthy businesses and vice versa. His covid response proposals and commentary on New Zealand’s response measures are at www.cognitus.co.nz.

Dr Eric Crampton is Chief Economist with the New Zealand Initiative. Prior to joining the Initiative in 2014, he was Senior Lecturer in Economics with the University of Canterbury. Since lockdown, he has written four short research reports, a dozen columns, and has featured regularly in media commentary on economic aspects of the pandemic.

Andreas Heuser is a Manager in Castalia’s New Zealand-Pacific practice and is President of LEANZ. He regularly advises in New Zealand on financial markets regulation, energy policy, and dairy industry competition policy. His international practice includes specialist institutional economics advice for Asia-Pacific infrastructure development. He has previously worked at New Zealand Treasury and leading law firms in Europe. He has written about COVID-19 and government policy responses at Castalia’s dedicated Pandemic Economics Blog.


Webinar Format:

Each speaker will present in turn for 15 minutes, and attendees will be able to pose questions via the moderated text box for the speakers to discuss for a further 15 minutes following their presentations. The presentations will be recorded, but not the Q&A session.


CPD

Lawyers may note that if this webinar topic is part of your learning objectives in your CPDPR, then attendance at this event can count for one hour of your 10 CPD hours. Details of how to confirm your attendance will be announced during the webinar.


Disclaimer

The Commerce Commission is a corporate member of LEANZ and supports its objective and activities. In this occasion, it is supporting LEANZ by making its Zoom facilities available for this webinar. Please note that the discussant’s views are unrelated to the Commerce Commission and its Commissioners.


Queries about the event can be directed to:

Diego Villalobos, diego.villalobos@comcom.govt.nz

Organised by

Sales Ended