Ricardo Hausmann in Nature

Like many nations, India does not have enough kits to test most of its population for the new coronavirus. The country is instead relying on people power: thousands of health-care workers are fanning out across the country to trace and quarantine people who might have had contact with those with COVID-19. People are typically only tested if they develop symptoms.

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However, further lockdowns could have dire consequences. Strict social-distancing measures mean that people must stay at home, so many cannot work —...

Ricardo Hausmann in Financial Times

Governments are fighting to keep the coronavirus pandemic at bay and their economies afloat

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Still, Ricardo Hausmann, a Venezuelan development economist at Harvard University, is not holding out great hope. “The situation in the advanced economies is likely to be much more benign than what developing countries are facing.”

Mr Hausmann says developing economies have been left in the lurch both in terms of their ability to fight the pandemic and to counter its economic impact. Even in the best of times...

Ricardo Hausmann in Miami Herald

While we are all watching the news about the explosion of COVID-19 cases in the United States, Spain and Italy, we will soon face a bigger problem.

After talking with almost a dozen experts from some of the world’s leading universities, I’m much more worried about what might soon happen in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean than about the latest U.S. or European pandemic statistics.

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Harvard University professor Ricardo Hausmann, an expert in global development issues, told me that the United...

Eduardo Levy Yeyati - Americas Quarterly

At a moment when advanced economies are debating whether to fund ambitious fiscal packages with zero-interest rate Treasury debt or central bank (“helicopter”) money, we in Latin America feel like the heroes in John Ford´s classic 1930s Western film Stagecoach: Surrounded by enemies, and with precious few fiscal bullets to spare.

Indeed, emerging economies have suffered the double shock of a flight-to-quality increase in financial costs and a commodity price decline that narrows the room for fiscal policy to respond...