The world stands still while the shockwaves of the corona virus reverberate around the world. Far-reaching economic consequences are difficult to assess. Will some of us be better off than others once we turn back to business as usual? Are we seeing a radical shift in the digitalization of work? Can Western democracies really deal with a challenge of this magnitude?

Joachim Voth, you have studied the economic consequences of plagues – what can we learn from your research?

The Great Plague in the Middle Ages in 1349/50 killed between one-third and half of the population. It appeared out of nowhere, seemingly. In actual fact, it spread from Mongolia, arriving on the shores of Europe via the Crimea. Obviously, the great medieval plague was a great human tragedy. In economic terms, however, it turned out to be a stroke of luck for those who survived. Because fewer people now cultivated the same amount of farmland, their incomes rose and consumption increased sharply. Ordinary workers could now afford meat, cheese, and beer, and maybe even wear leather shoes. Wages doubled, reaching a level in the year 1450 that they failed to return to until the 19th century, during the reign of Queen Victoria. In some joint work, we make the argument that the short-term shock to wages actually helped Europe to a more favourable growth trajectory over the long term.

We now witness countries on all continents shutting their borders. National interests block the flow of medical goods. What are the long-term consequences of this disintegration for the globalized economy?

Far-reaching consequences are difficult to assess. The exchange of goods is essential for the economy. Even if our world should become one of massively limited mobility, we could still ship intermediate goods around the world, get iPhones from China and Nikes from Vietnam. However, personal exchange is particularly important in fostering business relationships, meaning that if jetting around the world becomes difficult, forging new business connections will become more inefficient. In addition, we will see massive efforts to “re-shore” production of medical equipment, of basic stuff like masks. Everyone thought that in a crisis, you can just order the stuff you need from China. That turned out to be a costly mistake. Going forward, no country will entrust its medical supply to the kindness of foreigners.

Forced social distancing enables what previously seemed impossible: working from home is the new standard. Are we seeing a radical shift in the digitalization of work?

It is a big experiment. Perhaps we are going to witness a massive increase in productivity. A good part of what happens in companies, government, and universities during the day has little to do with their core business. Meetings where lots of people sit around without doing much, and without really having to be there; discussion rounds that repeat the well-known, frequent interruptions from colleagues – socially lovely, but a distraction. Social convention – and not a clear understanding of priorities – means that we all joined in these activities, to a greater or lesser extent, and nobody says, "Hold on, does that make sense?" There was little incentive to change this before the pandemic. Now you tune in to a meeting you don’t really need to be at, and when there is a half-hour discussion on something you cannot contribute to, you work on your referee report. That is more efficient. In a physical meeting, you wouldn’t whip out your laptop. All this may catalyze some rethink of how we organize our daily routines.

The University of Zurich was forced to shift teaching and exams to online-only. Will e-learning finally make its big mark?

I just taught my first class using an online tool. E-learning is not a bad thing, but it cannot replace personal contact in the long term, especially with masters and doctoral courses. E-learning does have its advantages in very large classes, however – nobody is going to put up his or her hand and interrupt a class of 500 anyways.

What will be the most far-reaching consequence of this global crisis?

A huge discussion will ensue about whether Western democracies can really deal with a challenge of this magnitude. Some people will say, "Look at China, they shut down Hubei – the size of Spain – when there were only a few hundred infected people, and built entire hospitals in ten days. Outside of Hubei Province, infections have been very low - that can only be done by an authoritarian state." It is indeed true that the United States is failing spectacularly, but the governments in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and the UK are not exactly covering themselves in glory either – lockdowns coming too late, wrong advice about masks, lack of masks, protective clothing, ventilators. Stockpiling these things cost money, but in normal times, this would be no more than a rounding in the national budget. This egregious failure has nothing to do with democracy, and more with bad politics, with irresponsible and confused politicians. If you look at South Korea, Japan, or Taiwan – all strong democracies – you can see what an intelligent, pragmatic, and determined quick intervention can do. The number of cases there has increased much more slowly, and all three states – although considerably more strongly linked with China – did not have to enforce nationwide shutdowns. We really need to ask the following questions. Why did a phlegmatic, irresponsible attitude of "let’s wait-and-see" prevail? Why was there helpless action at a snail's pace in Europe and the US? We had all these wake-up calls- SARS, MERS, swine flu, avian flu. And we did nothing. In contrast, Taiwan had already built a virtual plague wall against SARS sixteen years earlier. It proclaimed a state of emergency last December and stopped the virus extremely effectively. Every air traveler who came to the country brought his or her travel history of the past few weeks, and every suspected case was investigated. Korea did a lot of testing, and forced suspected cases into home quarantine, while the cafés in Europe were packed, Champions League matches were played, lectures packed with students were held, and mass demonstrations celebrating women's day went ahead, days before we put millions into ‘home arrest’. It was just stupid. Europe and the US should have responded as quickly and intelligently as Taiwan did, a small island with 24 million inhabitants. As of early April 2020, there are no stay-at-home orders in South Korea nor Taiwan nor Japan – and most of 700 million people of Europe and the US are not allowed on the street, factories, offices, restaurants, cafés, airports and borders are closed, and it’s totally unclear when they can open again.