COVID-19 threatens our health, wealth and welfare. It also threatens to overwhelm our limited resources. We need to think to chart the best course through. No one knows the answers, but rational, evidence-based debate is our best hope.

What’s the cost-effectiveness of various options to fight the pandemic?

What are the economic costs and consequences?

How can essential service providers, like electricity and water utilities, remain solvent while serving customers struggling to pay their bills?

If supermarkets put up prices, is that normal market forces, or price gouging that government should punish?

How can developing countries manage through the pandemic, when social distancing is near impossible, health systems are stretched at the best of times, and fiscal space is non-existent; what can donors and development agencies do to help?

Investors are asking, what will the world look like after the pandemic? Will the location of economic activity shift?

Are different transportation patterns likely?

What does this mean for the value of infrastructure assets and the viability of projects planned before the pandemic?

Now more than ever, we need thinking for a better world. My colleagues and I will be blogging on all these topics, in a rapid-fire format, putting out our ideas, arguing with each, exploring options. Please join our conversation as we help each other find the best way through this crisis.

David Ehrhardt, Chief Executive