'The Great Covid Panic: What happened, why and what to do next?' An interview with the co-author of this new book, Prof Paul Frijters

Why you should watch: Paul Frijters is one of a small but important band of wellbeing economists who are deeply sceptical of the global response to the Covid pandemic - and deeply concerned that we lack the institutional (and psychological) infrastructure to take a more rational approach when the next pandemic emerges. His work focuses on the damage that lockdowns did - not just to the global economy (and particularly to the poorest amongst us), but to everyone's psychological and social well-being. The evidence for lockdowns was, in his view, always shaky - and, indeed, 'the science' had been adamant right up until after the pandemic struck that lockdowns were not the way to go. But then something happened; governments lost their nerve, the scientific establishment split - and the line of least resistance was a policy of comprehensive lockdown that (in the authors' view) did massive damage. This book - published by the Brownstone Institute, and co-written with Prof Gigi Foster and Michael Baker - is a seriously argued corrective to the conventional narrative that masks, social distancing, isolation and vaccines are the way forward, and that the inevitable economic pain is worth it.

Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)

Paul Frijters is Professor of Wellbeing Economics at LSE. From 2016 to 2019, he was associated with the Centre for Economic Performance; he is now a member of the Department of Social Policy. Prior to joining the faculty at LSE, he taught at the University of Queensland, the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University. His PhD is from the University of Amsterdam. He is also a research fellow at the IZA Institute of Labour Economics in Germany.