AFSE – Were economists useful facing the Covid crisis?

In 2008, economists were blamed for not predicting the great financial crisis . Even if they have sometimes succumbed to the temptation of setting themselves up as epidemiologists (and vice versa for the latter), this time they cannot be blamed for not having anticipated the different waves of the crisis. Nevertheless, have economists been able to take the full measure of this almost unprecedented crisis, and what influence have they had on public decisions? Unusually, a consensus quickly emerged on the immediate and massive measures to be implemented to protect income and liquidity. But isn’t this consensus already crumbling when it comes to recommendations on the way out of the crisis and the post-crisis period? And what lessons should the profession learn from its insufficient cooperation with epidemiologists or its difficulty in grasping in real time the new vulnerabilities and inequalities created by this crisis?