Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host Russ Roberts

of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Our website is

econtalk.org, where you can subscribe, find other episodes, comment on this podcast, and

find links and other information related to today's conversation. Our email address is

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Today is May 12, 2020. My guest is economist and Nobel laureate Paul Romer, University professor

of economics at New York University. He previously served as chief economist at the World Bank,

and is the founding director of NYU's Marin Institute of Urban Management. This is Paul's fifth

appearance on econtalk, having last been here in April of 2019, talking about growth, cities,

and the state of economics. Our topic for today is the COVID-19 pandemic, and where we stand in

mid-May 2020. And as I've done recently, I want to remind listeners that because of the pandemic,

we're doing some different stuff with audio. We're also trying to record this as a YouTube video for

those who want to watch it. Paul, welcome back to econtalk.

Yeah, it's going to be back. So am I in the top and the return visits or the people?

Okay, I got to hear.

Now, you're like Henry Aaron's brother, Tommy. You know, the two of them, I think, hold the record

for most home runs by two brothers in the major leagues. I think Tommy, he might have under 50,

he might have under 10. I can't remember, but you get the joke. Anyway, as we record this,

it's mid-May, as I mentioned, and we're, they're about 80,000 dead in America.

As far as we know, there's a lot of uncertainty about that number, but that's the current sort of

best guess due to the COVID-19. And unemployment is just under 15%, but people expect to go

dramatically higher. What do you think it's important to recognize this stage of the pandemic?

...