Policy Punchline

Facebook invested $5.7 billion for a 10% stake in Indian telecom operator Jio Platforms Ltd, the biggest telecom operator in the country with more than 370 million subscribers. The deal not only made Facebook the largest minority shareholder in the Indian telecom network, but also brought India’s emerging tech scene back into the global spotlight.

In this episode, WSJ Asia tech reporter Newley Purnell gives us a detailed overview of the prosperous tech scene in India, the struggles that local startups face when competing against American & Chinese tech giants, Indian government’s antitrust actions, and emerging trends the land promises. Newley also comments on the socio-political life in India in general – from India’s democracy to caste structures, from religious identities to linguistic barriers, as well as issues in Indian business practices that may hinder growth and inclusivity.

This interview was recorded in February after Tiger’s return from a three-week trip in India. Newley and Tiger originally planned on meeting up in New Delhi to do the interview in person but ended up moving to a remote format. The recording does not touch on the most recent Jio-Facebook deal but still provides timely updates on the Indian tech market and its dynamics.

Newley Purnell is a Hong Kong-based journalist working for the Wall Street Journal, where he covers technology and business. Before joining in 2014, Mr. Purnell was a Bangkok-based freelance journalist, contributing to The Journal, Quartz, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. He received his Bachelor of Arts in English from Emory University and a Master’s in Business and Economics journalism from Columbia University, where he was a Gray International Reporting Fellow. When this interview was conducted, Newley was based in New Delhi. If you'd like to learn more about Newley's work, please visit "newley.com," where you may sign up for his insightful newsletter!

"What are the economic consequences of an influenza pandemic? And given the pandemic, what are the economic costs and benefits of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI)?" In a recently published economics paper, Prof. Emil Verner and his co-authors find that cities that intervened earlier and more aggressively in the 1918 Spanish Flu did not perform worse and, if anything, grew faster after the pandemic was over. Their findings thus indicate that NPIs not only lower mortality; they may also mitigate the adverse economic consequences of a pandemic.

The paper is titled "Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: Evidence from the 1918 Flu," and it provides crucial justification for the current social distancing measures and guidance on how we should handle this current Covid-19 crisis. In this interview, we ask Prof. Verner about his research methodology, why the 1918 Flu serves as a reliable comparison with the coronavirus outbreak, what recovery measures can be taken after the shutdown ends, and other important debates related to the economics of this crisis.

Prof. Emil Verner is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His current research focuses on the connection between financial markets and economic activity, both in advanced and emerging markets. In several recent studies, he has examined the role of household credit markets in amplifying business cycle fluctuations. In related work, Prof. Verner has also studied the real economic consequences of banking sector distress during financial crises around the world over the past 150 years. Finally, in ongoing research, Prof. Verner is currently exploring what role financial distress has played in the recent rise in populism.

Melissa Reynolds is Perkins-Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Princeton University. A historian and humanist, Dr. Reynolds recently published an op-ed in Washington Post comparing the coronavirus epidemic to “the sweat” outbreaks in 15th century Europe. She suggests that, despite the obvious advances in modern medicine since the 15th century, there are similarities between the two epidemics, most notably the failure of government to communicate adequately with the public.

In this interview, Dr. Reynolds explains why the public can so easily fall into misguided conceptions about a pandemic regardless of one's education level; how the government can step in to provide a clear and coherent voice about the pandemic while not being the only authority dictating public opinion; why media follows unique "cultural scripts" that end up posing a potent threat to the health of our socio-political discourse; and many other fascinating historical comparisons between today and the 15th century.

Dr. Reynolds is a historian of medieval and early modern England whose research focuses on practices of reading, writing, and knowledge-making at the moment of transition from manuscript to print. At Princeton, she is working on her first book, tentatively titled, “How To: Practical Books and the Making of Early Modern English Culture,” which examines the circulation of practical knowledge in late medieval manuscripts and early printed books.

Another wave of reflections for capitalism is now kindled by the Covid-19 crisis. Will the fiscal stimulus uplift the average Americans or end up exacerbating inequality? How is the crisis revealing fundamental fractures of the American and Western societies? The world as we have known it for the past decades has come to a stop, and the global socio-economic system might finally be shaken up as businesses remake their supply chains and governments re-envision their globalization goals... As people reflect on those important questions, we think it’s timely to re-introduce an earlier interview with Prof. Branko Milanovic on his book “Capitalism, Alone” and his insightful critique on the present and future of this political-economic system.

“Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World” provides a detailed recount of the path through which Capitalism came to dominate our world; an overview of the different capitalistic systems now govern the world; a range of problems such as inequality that Capitalism has engendered and struggled to respond to; and a deep reflection on the urgent socio-economic challenges our societies now face and how we may address them.

As the public today grows ever more concerned with inequality, one of the most noteworthy ideas in the book is how liberal meritocratic capitalism is a system with inherent characteristics that “enhance inequality.” Drawing from Thomas Piketty and a wide range of literature and data, Prof. Milanovic provides a refreshing view on how we may rethink radical solutions for our dire problems.

Branko Milanović is a visiting presidential professor at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and a senior scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-economic Inequality. He served as lead economist in the World Bank’s Research Department for almost 20 years, leaving to write his book on global income inequality, “Worlds Apart” (2005). His book “The Haves and the Have-nots” (2011) was selected by The Globalist as the 2011 Book of the Year. “Global Inequality” (2016) was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the best political book of 2016 and the Hans Matthöfer Prize in 2018, and was translated into 16 languages. It addresses economic and economic and political effects of globalization and introduces the concept of successive “Kuznets waves” of inequality. In March 2018, Milanovic was awarded (jointly with Mariana Mazzucato) the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Knowledge.

Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Considered by many as “world’s most influential living philosopher,” Prof. Singer works mostly in practical ethics and is known for his controversial critique of the sanctity of life ethics.

In this interview, Prof. Singer discusses how one may reason through triage decisions when it's no longer hypothetical to decide who lives and dies; whether the negatives of the economic shutdown outweigh the benefits; when governments should be allowed to intervene with individual choices for better public health outcomes; why he advocates for the closing of wet markets; and the long-term moral-ethical impacts of Covid-19...

The interview is co-hosted by Tiger Gao and Arjun Mani, who will also offer an overview of some of the most interesting philosophical, economic, and political arguments central to the crisis today.

Prof. Singer is perhaps best known for his book "Animal Liberation," often credited with starting the modern animal rights movement. A vegetarian himself, he co-founded the Australian Federation of Animal Societies, now Animals Australia, the country's largest and most effective animal organization. He is also the founder of "The Life You Can Save," an organization based on his book of the same name. It aims to spread ideas about why we should be doing much more to improve the lives of people living in extreme poverty, and how we can best do this. Prof. Singer's writings have also heavily influenced the development of the effective altruism movement.

Prof. Singer has written, co-authored, edited or co-edited more than 50 books, including "Practical Ethics," "The Expanding Circle," "Rethinking Life and Death," "One World," "The Ethics of What We Eat" (with Jim Mason) and "The Point of View of the Universe" (with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek). His writings have appeared in more than 25 languages.

Markus Brunnermeier is the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Economics and Director of the Bendheim Center for Finance at Princeton University. In this episode, Prof. Brunnermeier explains the nature of the covid-19 economic shock, why it poses a threat to financial stability, the $2tr stimulus package and why the current solutions for funding small & medium-sized businesses are still insufficient, how to bring the economy back to life in the long run, and other topical political & economic debates related to the crisis.

One of the most prominent economists of our time, Prof. Brunnermeier focuses his research on international financial markets and the macro economy with special emphasis on bubbles, liquidity, financial crises and monetary policy. He promoted the concepts of liquidity spirals, CoVaR as co-risk measure, the paradox of prudence, and the I Theory of Money. He is or was a member of several advisory groups, including to the IMF, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the European Systemic Risk Board, the German Bundesbank and the U.S. Congressional Budget Office.

Dan Michelson is the CEO of Strata Decision Technology, an analytics and financial planning platform that helps over 1,000 leading healthcare organizations and system in the U.S. to figure out and lower their true costs.

In this episode, Dan explains why health systems don't understand the true costs of their treatments and operations, the key interests and incentives for doctors and patients to demand reforms, the reasons why Silicon Valley startups have failed to "disrupt" the industry, and the need to understand healthcare on a deeper level.

Dan also discusses the impact of coronavirus on hospitals’ bottom lines, the enormous responsibilities that healthcare workers are taking on, his optimism of how we will come out of this crisis stronger, and ways we can get both acknowledge the problems and contribute to the solutions. We would strongly encourage you to follow Strata's campaign and tag #MyHealthcareHero to thank those who are risking their lives for our safety.

With close to 30 years of healthcare experience and the mission to "help heal healthcare," Dan has been one of the industry’s key thought leaders in developing the Decision Support, Financial Planning, Electronic Prescribing and Electronic Health Record markets, including serving on the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology and co-authoring the books "Margin + Mission: A Prescription for Curing Healthcare’s Cost Crisis" and "The Electronic Physician."

Nancy Lin is a former senior advisor at Exxon Mobil and has career experiences across the oil and gas value chains, including supply chain logistics, crude oil trading, strategic technology and business alignment studies, long-term market outlook development, and environmental health and safety legislative affairs.

In this interview, Nancy discusses the evolution of cleaner energy sources in the U.S. and abroad and weighs the different policy options necessary to mitigate rising emissions. She also address critical issues surrounding the role of large corporations in combating climate change in the context of government regulation. With her dynamic perspectives on both natural gas technology development and business, Nancy helps us address these questions among others about our global energy transition towards a more sustainable future.

With her B.S.E in Chemical Engineering from Princeton ‘77, Nancy started her career researching project opportunities with Mobil Oil. After pursuing an MBA in Finance from NYU Stern, she shifted to the business side with the supply and logistics group that focused on driving those technologies forward as energy and finance were becoming increasingly intertwined in the 1980s. As Senior Advisor at Exxon, Nancy drove innovation and development of the long-term prospects for natural gas/LNG, and her recommendations to senior management provided input for the corporation’s business decisions outlined in the Exxon Mobil Energy Outlook. After retiring, she consulted part-time for PIRA Energy Consulting Group, an S&P Global company. Nancy is also Co-Chair for the Asian American Alumni Association of Princeton (A4P).

Austan Goolsbee is former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for President Obama and led the Economic Recovery Advisory Board after the 2008 financial crisis. In this interview, he talks about how he first got involved advising Obama’s Senate campaign in 2004 as a fellow UChicago professor, the critical decision-making moments to save the economy from recession, his reasons of endorsing Pete Buttigieg for President, the efficacy of UBI in an AI economy, and his potential prospects as a stand-up comedian…

Prof. Goolsbee is currently the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. His research has earned him recognition as a Fulbright Scholar and an Alfred P. Sloan fellow. In prior years he was named one of the 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum, and one of the six "Gurus of the Future" by the Financial Times. His ability to explain economics clearly has made Goolsbee popular in the media. Jon Stewart describes him as "Eliot Ness meets Milton Friedman,” and he has twice been named as a "star" professor by BusinessWeek's "Guide to the Best Business Schools."

But perhaps just as importantly, some of the other distinguished titles he’s received include “Salon.com’s one the 15 Sexiest Men of 2010,” “the funniest celebrity in Washington,” etc. WSJ once described him as a “stand-up economist,” and his charisma and thoughtfulness have truly shined through in this podcast interview as he banters with Arjun & Tiger about his career and economic insights.

Prof. Goolsbee now serves on the Economic Advisory Panel to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and has previously served on the Panel of Economic Advisors to the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. Census Advisory Commission and as a special consultant for Internet Policy to the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. He joined Chicago Booth in 1995.

Professor Jessica Metcalf of Princeton explains how to best understand the novel Coronavirus and emerging diseases in general, why it might take a long while to find and produce a vaccine, why the WHO would declare a State of Emergency around the Coronavirus, how researchers can measure its severity and spread, and what properties of COVID-19 compel her to think it might go global.

Jessica Metcalf is Assistant Professor of Ecology, Evolutionary Biology & Public Affairs at Princeton University, and a demographer with broad interests in evolutionary ecology, infectious disease dynamics and public policy.

Some of her motivating research questions of particular interest include: How will changing human demography impact infectious disease incidence and spread? What drives dynamics of rubella through space and time, and what does this indicate for vaccine control? What are the key influences on dynamics of malaria inside the bloodstream of mice, and what does this imply for control as well as evolution of the parasite? When should reproduction occur in plants where reproduction is fatal (from an evolutionary perspective) and can we link this back to the genetic background using the model plant system, Arabidopsis thaliana? How long do trees live and what does this imply for rates of carbon turnover and recovery following the spread of forest pathogens?

Prof. Metcalf’s teaching focuses on a course titled Epidemiology: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective. Her course aims to communicate both an understanding of the core principles of epidemiology (ranging from classical study designs to core analytical techniques) and a broader perspective into the fundamental drivers of health outcomes (ranging from ecological drivers of the spread of infectious disease to the evolutionary determinants of profiles of late age mortality).