The Pandemic, The Climate, and Productivity

The pandemic depression and climate change have buffeted the global economy and more. The pandemic has caused the deepest depression in a century, has had a devastating impact on human health and morbidity, and has exacerbated global inequalities. Climate change has exacted its own economic toll, has had its own adverse impacts on human health and global inequalities, and continues to wreak havoc on the global environment. I survey the literatures exploring the two challenges as at mid-2021, separately and jointly because they interact. I survey the impacts of the pandemic on global value chains, on aggregate and business output and employment, and on productivity. I survey the impacts of climate change on aggregate and business adaptation, the last line of defence, on agriculture, where the impacts are particularly severe, on business, and on productivity. I continue with an exploration into the linkages between the two challenges, and efforts to decouple them through a wide range of green growth policies. Throughout I emphasise the important role played by management, at business, national and global levels, in allocating resources to counter the impacts of both challenges. I acknowledge that the pandemic and climate change are evolving, the former encouragingly rapidly until the unwelcome arrival of the Delta variant, and the latter depressingly slowly, and consequently this survey is aiming at a pair of moving targets.