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Kathleen Stephansen

In July of 2024, the authors invited several eminently qualified readers to review a draft of The Fed and the Flu. Kathleen Stephansen, current Vice Chair and former Chair of the College of Central Bankers at the Global Interdependence Center, accepted the invitation to read and offered the following review. 

Review of The Fed and the Flu: Parsing Pandemic Economic Shocks by David R. Kotok, Michael Englund, Tristan Erwin and Elizabeth Sweet 

The Fed & the Flu, Parsing Pandemic Economic Shocks is a monumental journey through time aimed at understanding the impact of pandemics on individuals, society, the economy and on policy responses. The latter vary in their objectives, some to preserve the power of ruling classes within their empires, and some to protect the social fabric and well-functioning of societies. Invariably, the economic impact of mass contagious illness is profound and often long-lasting. The striking and remarkable conclusion is that whether through antiquity, the Middle Ages, the pre-industrial and industrial eras, the modern scientific times or through the advent of the technological and AI revolutions, the responses from large segments of the population carry a disturbingly similar tendency: a burgeoning lack of trust in governing entities. The emergence of this profound skepticism defies science and lays the groundwork for misinformation, disinformation and beliefs that, alas, hinder the protection of individuals from the onslaught of pandemics. The book offers remarkable details of the different outbreaks of disease, their ensuing ravages and the efforts to counter their impact. Through time, one can only humbly recognize the resiliency of humankind and be thankful for reprieves between pandemics. It is only in the twenty-first century that the Federal Reserve came to recognize the immense impact of a pandemic on the economy and its financial stability and thus on the importance of countering it. For readers who are more inclined to visuals, the last chapter of the book gives a superb synopsis of the COVID-19 economic impact via charts. David Kotok and co-authors Michael Englund, Tristan Erwin, and Elizabeth Sweet have produced a lucid, well-documented and tremendously interesting read about one of many recurring human tragedies through time. 

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