It is hard to plan for catastrophes. They come in many varieties. Today we are focused on a global pandemic. Perhaps next, an asteroid will whack the planet. Electric power grids could go down. The digital payment networks might fail or maybe the global Internet. Nuclear disaster could hit. Global warming could cut off food supplies. Or a different pandemic might arise. Even for a given risk it is hard to know how it will play out and therefore how we could plan for it. Very thoughtful economists, who have studied catastrophes, assumed that pandemics would not have any effect on the economy beyond causing deaths. It appears that most governments did not plan, or plan well, for dealing with the interrelated health and economic consequences of a global pandemic. That might have been the right choice at the time. The cost of getting prepared could have outweighed the benefits of having readied for an event that probably would not happen. And whose contours would be so uncertain that it would have been hard to even know what solutions to consider. Unfortunately, the economic literature on catastrophes points to another possibility. Governments may have reacted rationally, but badly, to the fact that the expected political and professional benefits of planning for improbable future events are infinitesimal. Even though the expected social benefits, taken across all possible catastrophes and accounting for costs of unmitigated ones, are likely to be quite high. That is a scary thought. We have known for some time that the development of modern technologies, and greater global density of connections, have increased the risk of worldwide catastrophes. There is a higher cumulative probability of catastrophes with much higher costs. It is possible that governments have developed plans, based on war games, and hidden away in vaults, for dealing with the fulsome effects of other catastrophes. A reasonable concern from recent events, however, is that governments have underinvested in avoiding catastrophes and plans for mitigating their consequences. Hopefully, the shock of massive deaths and economic collapse will energize governments into better long-term planning for catastrophes and not just efforts, such as stockpiling facemasks and ventilators for the next pandemic, which probably

中文翻译：

---

规划灾难

很难为灾难做计划。它们有很多种。今天，我们专注于全球大流行。也许接下来，一颗小行星会撞击地球。电网可能会瘫痪。数字支付网络或全球互联网可能会失败。核灾难可能会袭来。全球变暖可能会切断粮食供应。或者可能会出现不同的流行病。即使对于给定的风险，也很难知道它将如何发挥作用，因此我们如何计划。研究过灾难的深思熟虑的经济学家认为，流行病除了造成死亡之外不会对经济产生任何影响。大多数政府似乎没有做好应对全球流行病相互关联的健康和经济后果的计划或计划。这在当时可能是正确的选择。做好准备的成本可能超过为可能不会发生的事件做好准备的好处。并且其轮廓是如此不确定，以至于甚至很难知道要考虑哪些解决方案。不幸的是，关于灾难的经济文献指出了另一种可能性。政府可能对以下事实做出了合理但糟糕的反应，即为不可能的未来事件进行规划所带来的预期政治和专业收益是微乎其微的。即使考虑到所有可能的灾难并考虑到未减轻灾难的成本，预期的社会效益可能会相当高。这是一个可怕的想法。一段时间以来，我们已经知道现代技术的发展和全球连接密度的增加，增加了全球灾难的风险。灾难的累积概率更高，成本更高。政府可能已经根据兵棋推演制定了计划，并隐藏在金库中，以应对其他灾难的严重影响。然而，近期事件的一个合理担忧是，政府在避免灾难和减轻灾难后果的计划方面投资不足。希望大规模死亡和经济崩溃的冲击将激励政府为灾难做出更好的长期规划，而不仅仅是努力，例如为下一次大流行储备口罩和呼吸机，这可能会 用于处理其他灾难的严重影响。然而，近期事件的一个合理担忧是，政府在避免灾难和减轻灾难后果的计划方面投资不足。希望大规模死亡和经济崩溃的冲击将激励政府为灾难做出更好的长期规划，而不仅仅是努力，例如为下一次大流行储备口罩和呼吸机，这可能会 用于处理其他灾难的严重影响。然而，近期事件的一个合理担忧是，政府在避免灾难和减轻灾难后果的计划方面投资不足。希望大规模死亡和经济崩溃的冲击将激励政府为灾难做出更好的长期规划，而不仅仅是努力，例如为下一次大流行储备口罩和呼吸机，这可能会