# The Economic Impact of Coronavirus

Data: 11-01-2025 21:46:50

## Lista de Vídeos

1. [The impact of Covid-19 in capital flows and emerging markets | COVID-19 Series | LBS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw9tkdd3r6Q)
2. [The impact of COVID-19 in West Africa | COVID-19 Series | LBS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toE6pZxd9PU)
3. [Consumption in the time of COVID-19: Evidence from UK transaction data  | COVID-19 Series | LBS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iujPWJ6dguE)
4. [The impact of Covid-19 in Russia and Eastern Europe | COVID-19 Series | LBS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZyfum2T1mA)
5. [The economic implications of COVID-19 | COVID-19 Series | LBS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpL5t6CQv5U)
6. [The impact of Covid-19 in South Africa | COVID-19 Series | LBS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ng68Kghfug)
7. [UK household debt before and after the crisis | Wheeler Institute | LBS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK9bHF4ZA_Y)

## Transcrições

### The impact of Covid-19 in capital flows and emerging markets | COVID-19 Series | LBS
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw9tkdd3r6Q

Transcrição não disponível

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### The impact of COVID-19 in West Africa | COVID-19 Series | LBS
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toE6pZxd9PU

Transcrição não disponível

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### Consumption in the time of COVID-19: Evidence from UK transaction data  | COVID-19 Series | LBS
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iujPWJ6dguE

Transcrição não disponível

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### The impact of Covid-19 in Russia and Eastern Europe | COVID-19 Series | LBS
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZyfum2T1mA

Idioma: en

[Music]
welcome everyone to the London Business
School wheeler Institute for business
and development covered 19 series we
will continue our discussions zooming
into varios emerging and frontier
economies and today we are both happy
and honored very glad to welcome Sergey
Judith in our Ovid 19 series Sergey
thanks for taking the time and joining
us a Sergey is one of the most prolific
and important economist it has done very
important work on the economy of Russia
of China of transition economies more
generally he served as director of the
new economic school in Moscow a Russia's
premiere School of Economics and over
the past couple of years it has been a
professor of economics at CN spoo
although he took a guess a long
sabbatical serving as chief economist
for the European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development although now his back
took his more academic life Sergey has
worked on a plethora of issues corporate
governance corporate finance the
economics of growth my favorite work of
his regards the industrialization of the
Soviet Union the Chinese Republic under
Stalin and Mao most importantly he has
also worked on the financial sector he
has been at the board of Russian banks
in he combines an in-depth knowledge of
the structure Eastern Europe the Russian
economy with a much more hands-on and
practical experience so without any
further view let me just welcome Sergey
thanks for taking the time Sergey ok and
I would like to ask the first question
just give us an overview of what's
happening in emerging markets and
protein economies nowadays and then
secondly how these emerging markets
crisis or origin of crisis unfolds in
Russia
thank you very much at least for
inviting me it's a great honor to be on
this series
yes emerging markets are facing a big
challenge right now so unlike developed
countries they don't have fiscal space
and death
so they cannot just say I'll spend 10%
of GDP or 20% of GDP to stand up to this
crisis some of them have limited ability
to borrow some of them actually do have
rainy day funds and Russia is one of
those countries Russia is about 10 15 %
doesn't well depends how you count in
the oil fund it's actually true as well
for Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan they also
have some word chests if you like but in
general the challenge is very different
between developed and developing
economies where developing countries
have this problem that they would like
to respond to the crisis they need to
respond because they're our health
systems are actually not as strong as
those in developed countries but they
don't really have the cash and if those
countries which have the cash are the
countries which export oil and oil
prices as you know have really tanked so
in the early 2020 world prices were at
the level of 60 $70 per barrel to data
at 25 and actually in March there were
weeks when all prices became negative
and in early April certain oil prices
reached zero when you think about those
issues and you know that your expert
commodities oil
you really should be scared and this is
not surprising because the coded driven
economic recession the global recession
is not just a normal global recession
it's a global recession where the
sectors that buy oil that is Airlines
and and cars and protein all these
sectors are hit disproportionately and
so even if global GDP contracted by
three percent or even five percent the
biggest challenges for those sectors so
demand for oil today is something like
minus 30 percent relative to what it
used to be so oil exporters are hit a
lot and of course Russia is one of them
in Russia get very bad well I really
want to zoom into Russia and what's
happening in nowadays so our
understanding or at least my
understanding is that
many interactions health crisis the huge
drop in commodity prices especially oil
so what do you think how should the
response of Russian authorities fiscal
and monetary policy should be so on
monitor in monetary terms monetary
policy in Russia has been exemplary so
Russia has moved to flexible exchange
rate around 2014 and since then Russia
is doing inflation targeting in a
discipline textbook way and has been
doing a good job and so oil price goes
down Russian ruble tanks competitiveness
is restored
so monetary policies is performed really
according to a macro textbook now the
fiscal policy is a bigger challenge so
indeed Russian health system is not
comparable to best global standards and
so even in Moscow which is better funded
there is a general risk and general
feeling that hospitals are being
overwhelmed now the mayor of Moscow has
recognized that Moscow is going to be
hit especially badly because Moscow is
the best integrate the most integrated
part of Russia the most integrated
global Russian region and so it is
actually the cluster of kovat 19 at the
moment so Moscow's hit hard but even in
Moscow with better health care system
there is a risk of overflowing the
hospitals and in that sense it is a
challenge now we independent economists
recommend the Russian government to be
generous and actually to spend rainy day
fund in order not to overburden the
hospital system you need to introduce
Street lockdown but once you introduce
strict lockdown of course people lose
their incomes and all small businesses
especially in Moscow lose 100% of their
incomes and so the government is
supposed to help those people help
households help self-employed help small
businesses in the government so far has
not been doing that government has been
save in the money and people like myself
would criticize
that decision and would say that Russian
government should spend from six to ten
percent of GDP
which it has in the rainy day fund well
the Russian government so far only
announced a package of 2% of GDP in half
of that is actually not given money but
just postponing tax payments and so in
that sense Russian government has not
been generous and I think it's wrong
because when people have nothing to eat
they eventually go out in the street
simply because they have nothing to eat
and that creates additional risks of a
second outburst of the epidemic and so
I'm I'm really worried and the epidemic
today is Russia has been fortunate to be
slow in picking up the epidemic because
Russians don't go to scale to French or
Italian resorts as much as they used to
when oil price was hundred or hundred
forty dollars per barrel but still
Russians Russians are very disconnected
especially after sanctions from global
economy and so because of that Russia is
late Russia is Russia's falling the
epidemic with a months or months and a
half
relative to European tenants but today
if you look at new daily cases of
coronavirus Russia is second only to the
United States every day we are talking
today and they made fourth every day
Russia hits 10,000 cases the deaths are
not as scary at the moment we are
talking about hundred death per day it's
a big number but it's still lower than
you would have an interviewer France in
the worst days and you would have 500 or
more but still it's going up and in that
sense Russia should be stricter on lock
down more generous on supporting people
who lose incomes and also throw a lot of
resources into health care and
unfortunately the Russian government has
been less decisive and less generous
then it should have been yeah you
mentioned that you know when people
don't have to eat they don't have to eat
you know they go out and they try to
work but we know actually from history
that when world commodity prices were
very low
there is a correlation with civil war
outbreak ability and I remember
personally talking to a common friend
Russian economy saying how come
Gorbachev so quickly power and I
remember him telling the world price of
oil was bottom down and we know had
another transition when we had President
Putin rising to power effectively which
also coincides with a drop of
commodities Russian default of the late
90s so now another issue that I know
that can work is you know how the
political situation the social situation
so it's a great question because at this
particular government mr. Putin's
government has never experienced oil
prices as low so if you think about
2008-2009 oil prices went down to 37
dollars per barrel it looked very low
but by today's standards it will be just
great because today's prices are 2025
and in 2014 all prices came down but
recovered quickly and in this sense
there is a challenge and mr. Putin's
approval ratings are coming down to the
extent that some of those ratings are no
longer published so for example there is
this survey of whom would would you vote
for
if election takes place now and so mr.
Putin's ratings eventually came down to
something like 45 percent in December
January but in February and March they
stopped publishing those ratings because
apparently mr. Putin is not as popular
as before but there is a difference
between mr. Putin and mr. Gorbachev so
mr. Putin cannot afford to step down
he's done too much antagonizing people
outside of Russia inside of Russia so he
has to stick to his job in order to stay
safe mr. Gorbachev also didn't like to
lose his office but he has been out of
office for what 30 years by now and she
is still alive and he travels around the
world and he's respected especially
outside of Russia so he can safely he
could safely step down there is a
general feeling that people like mr.
Putin
cannot step down
and so this region will find in various
ways to stay in office but it is facing
the most difficult crisis in its
lifetime and in the in the lifetime of
what institution so so actually that's a
great point but you know moving forward
and I guess with the caveat
microeconomics I'm not really good at
forecasting especially about the future
yeah it's like this quote of middles
bore the famous physicist hey so how do
you see developments unfolding in Russia
[Music]
so this is indeed very hard to forecast
because in democracies at least you can
forecast politics you know that
presidents change but rules of the game
and democracies are kind of staying
stable in non democracies like Russia
today the probability of leaders change
leaders turnover is low but once this
turnover happens everything changes
because this is a parent personalistic
regime and when mr. Putin is gone
everything will be different and so in
that respect it's very hard to predict
what post Putin Russia will be like and
also the safest bat is status quo
because these regimes don't change
everything so they're very one class and
mr. Putin has been running the country
for 20 years now and so in that sense
the best bet is the status quo which
means mr. Putin stays in power Russia
has a recession this year so the IMF
forecast for this year is minus five
hundred five percent decline in Russian
GDP in 2020 and then recovery in 2021
Central Bank of Russia forecast from
four to six percent recession this year
things may actually be worse than that
because Russian government as I said is
not generous which means the shock of
the lockdown will be more painful many
businesses will just discontinue to
exist will not recover after the
lockdown and so the GDP shock will
very painful and then oil prices will
recover at some point maybe by the end
of this year maybe by by the end of next
year they are not likely to go back to
60 or 70 because air travel will
probably not recover to pre-crisis level
and so a lot of people will continue to
give seminars online rather than travel
to each other's universities but also
business people will travel less and in
that sense oil prices are likely to
recover two levels of 35 and 40 which
means the regime will have to adjust
somehow but the status quo is a very
nasty recession this year and probably
recovering next year and also
readjustment to new reality when oil
prices are no longer 60 or 70 but more
like 35 and so that means that this
region will be probably less
internationally aggressive maybe there
will be some hope for improving business
climate but with mr. Putin in power for
20 years it's very hard to cope that
this regime will change and will
suddenly become more friendly towards
international investment you make this
point because of the cooler Institute
we're particularly keen on the role of
business and development so I wanted to
ask you you know typically with these
crises with focus or policy monetary
fiscal government health policy of
course but we have not been discussed
much about the role of business so how
do you see Russian businesses a
adjusting to this secondly what's the
role of the big and successful semi
successful Greek Russian in the months
quarters in years ago so in Russia it is
suddenly becoming clear how developed
and sophisticated Russian small business
has become and now when the small
business is going belly-up the outcry is
huge exactly because people noticed how
much was dependent on small businesses
we didn't have cash buffer but provided
high-quality diversified sophisticated
services so in
it's very sad what's happening right now
because a lot of very sophisticated
companies may actually disappear now the
other part of Russian business is
Russian online business and that of
course will continue to prosper and
these companies are doing a good job and
a lot of what they've built is now
helping people to survive through the
lockdown and that means FinTech payment
systems delivery food and other goods
all of the e-commerce all of that
continues to function and it turns out
that Russian companies have done a good
job regarding that now if you think
about international companies so Russia
will remain isolated Russia will not
suddenly reintegrate into the global
economy because of its geopolitical
standing sanctions and so on and so in
that sense I won't expect suddenly more
openings for big international companies
if you want to ask a question about big
companies you really want to look into
Russia's neighbors rather than Russia
proper and many stricken countries will
welcome more international investment
simply because this will be a
devastating crisis for emerging markets
there will be short for cash they will
be short for capital and they will be
interested in bringing in international
companies and many of the emerging
markets currencies will tank which means
that this market sizes will be smaller
so Ukrainian market will not be as
attractive as it was just a year ago but
Ukrainian labor will be cheaper than a
year ago and the same applies to many
syrup in countries so if you want to
build a company which would export to
neighboring high-income countries there
is something that will emerge out of
this crisis unfortunately because I
would like to see Ukrainian wages to go
up in dollar terms not down yeah so my
last question is mostly related what one
discussed so far I know that we have
been doing some work on social media and
media together also Katya
so it is actually thing this is the time
to really test this conjecture with some
evidence of course social media
propagate fake news perhaps you know if
you were supporting politician a and I
was supporting politician B you know
perhaps you know there was like some
Sunday standing of a or B was okay but
now we're talking about misinformation
about health people care the most so
given your war okay
how do you think they see the political
and economic situation will unfold in
the years to come because the way I see
that in you know given us are already at
work together is that I see one kind of
force pushing people oh now let's try to
see which is the reliable source a who
is the expert oxidation for example when
you drug development but then I see
another tendency that now have been
bombarded with health news and it is
very easy for a populist social media to
say oh look everything is official how
do you think I think I think indeed we
can be on the optimistic side that
during a pandemic during the health
crisis you have more demand for
expertise and probably more credibility
of experts because stakes are so high we
are not talking about percentage points
of GDP or or inflation or unemployment
even we are talking about lives we are
talking about thousands of lives and so
you would think that listening to
doctors would be a good idea and we also
see that populist are not very competent
we see that President Trump has made
many major mistakes we also see that in
the UK initially the government did not
choose the optimal trajectory we see in
Brazil major major problems due to lack
of competence of president ball sauna
and so we see how populist leaders are
not doing a good job exactly because
populist narrative
against expertise is against elite and
elite and expertise for them it's the
same and so in that sense we can hope
that after this crisis there will be
more respect for experts and in that
sense probably populace will lose some
of the attractivity of their message on
the other hand as you rightly said
they're extremely good and building a
narrative so I won't really just say
that populace will give up and say sorry
we were incompetent we're wrong let's
trust the experts no they will try to
spin the narrative and we already see
that well president tram doesn't get the
increase in his ratings like many people
would do in this rally around the flag
kind of crisis where government approval
ratings go up in many countries still he
doesn't have a major decrease and given
how a disastrous present France policies
have been on many counts it is striking
to what extent is still reasonably
successful in keeping his base with him
and in that sense I think it's not
enough to win the war against the virus
it's also important to tell the voters
how and why expertise matters how and
why competence matters and you cannot
just lie your way around this crisis you
really need the work you need to know
what you're doing and so I think it's
still unclear what's going to happen
afterwards now one interesting political
implication is I think this crisis will
reinforce the support for the Green
Party's so when you mentioned my work on
Internet penetration one of the things
which we found a spread of Internet
increased the support for populous but
did not increase support for green
parties because green message apparently
is not as simple and it's about respect
for science it's also about taking
responsibility for the planet and this
crisis may actually help the green
parties who would say look we need to
respect the nature otherwise climate
change and imposing ourselves on the
nature may
result in pandemics like this and the
second argument that green parties can
use is look we just sacrificed 5% of
global GDP or something like this
because we wanted to save lives
climate change potentially is going to
cost a lot of lives so why shouldn't we
sacrifice some money to slow down the
climate change it's much harder to
reject the argument like this because
well we've just seen how governments
stood up and said we are going to spend
five percent of GDP 10 percent of GDP or
in some country 7 30 percent of GDP to
save lives and in that sense I think
there are some potential implications
for political landscape in Europe and
globally Sergey thank you very much for
taking the time with us on how busy you
are things to look for enlightening us
about Russia yeah thank you a lot for
sharing your insights thank you very
much yes
yeah thank you very much it was great
thank you
[Music]
[Music]

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### The economic implications of COVID-19 | COVID-19 Series | LBS
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpL5t6CQv5U

Transcrição não disponível

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### The impact of Covid-19 in South Africa | COVID-19 Series | LBS
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ng68Kghfug

Idioma: en

[Music]
welcome to another episode of our Kovac
conversations today we're joined by Nick
bin Adele Nick is one of the most
prominent academics have been the the
founder founding dean of the Gooden
Institute of business Sciences
pioneering institutions that's part of
the University of Victoria in South
Africa and more generally an adviser to
CEOs presidents ministers not only in
South Africa but around the world and
also a friend of our school at London
Business School and the wheeler
Institute
Nick every year joins our MBA students
in South Africa to give them a bit of
context about because he has his unique
ability to put things in context share
the insights of the reality of business
and society and leadership not only from
the view from the top but also from the
ground up Nick absolute delight to have
you back how are you doing I'm well
rajesh dealing with these turbulent
times thank you I suppose having come
out of a South African history and
thinking back to the 80s when life was
extremely turbulent we have experienced
these kind of challenges before though
these are completely unprecedented and
different I have moments where I'm very
very concerned and unclear about how
this is all going to work out for
everybody but in general I'm good and
very very busy thank you and you're safe
and all family friends are ok for now so
today is the first of May South Africa's
just true nurturing open
cracking open the doors a bit in it's
rather extraordinary lockdown relative
to other parts of the world we're quite
a few of the realities of daily life
have been locked down can you talk a bit
about whether that has implied in terms
of the challenges will come later on to
what some solutions might be what you're
observing and what you think should be
both from a perspective of of
decision-makers who have great influence
but also from the perspective of those
on the ground but let's start with the
challenges what have you seen so far
especially as you look at the world
through South African eyes well I mean
first to say the president president
Ramaphosa made a quite early and
emphatic decision with his cabinets to
create this lockdown of the economy and
it's very hard to tell as we historians
were all the guards how each country
handle this but ours was pretty emphatic
so he literally shut down the economy
and movements unlike many other
economies who could support its
workforce South Africa doesn't have the
financial resources to do so
so this was a very very brave and
difficult decision and as you know and
many would know that before the
breakdown for the lockdown so that his
economy or was already in a very
difficult situation so this has been an
added impact and if you study the
structure of our economy one of the most
unequal in the world we have a very very
high unemployment rate and so this
really was a shock to the economy apart
from the medical and social issues so it
was a dramatic choice he put human life
ahead of economic life and as you just
indicated we've now gone through in
today is the first day of the first
phase where beyond running essential
businesses we're now starting to open up
the economy a little bit in mining and
manufacturing and so on so it's been a
well managed a well managed policy yeah
the difficulty in South Africa is
execution on the ground
the army have been called out to assist
they haven't been trained to do this
well the police have been trying to
manage the lockdown it's not easy and
South Africans have a long history of
resilience but also of defiance
the struggle led to a really tough
minded attitude and in the in the poor
community as I've been working in
delivering food and helping both of the
forty thousand feet level little sama
ground I would say the lockdown was only
been partially effective thank you now I
want to come back to a couple of points
you've made you mentioned the indeed
brave and difficult decisions made by
the President and local government in
response to this crisis in South Africa
has been a leader on many dimensions in
its history with respect to for instance
the HIV crisis it was not and perhaps
some of that experiences is reflected in
in that response what are you finding in
terms of the reaction of both those in
the business community and especially
those in large businesses as well as as
you said resilience and resistance you
know and willingness to take things for
granted that's a very good question as
you know South Africa is a corporate
economy yeah it's got quite a weak SME
economy and so corporate South Africa's
really the strength of our economy and
what has happened in the last few months
is business and governments have really
cooperated together yeah so we've
launched a solidarity fund where
individuals and companies have put
hundreds of millions of dollars into a
fellow Angelenos iran's and many
millions of dollars into a fund to
assist manage the process to keep
businesses afloat and to assist in terms
of food and so on so there's emerged a
very good partnership
I'm involved in a group called the
public-private growth initiative which
has been running for two years we
converted that into helping give
guidance to the presidency and cabinets
about the regulatory environment under
which we would define essential services
and now begin opening up what we calling
a risk-adjusted phasing to the opening
of the economy so relationship has been
very good and although there many
criticisms and the public and so on have
comments we made the decision to ban the
sale of cigarettes which is very unusual
the president announced that we'd lift
the ban the minister announced today
that we weren't going to go to the ban
so you know it's not all straightforward
and straight sailing but I have to say
both business and government have been
decisive and business in general has
been very generous in supporting the
social needs because government has very
little in the Fiskars to spend I want to
come back to that but since you
mentioned cigarettes and alcohol and
which is a whole other conversation
which in in the UK alcohol is now deemed
an essential service so wine stores well
we are exporting our line but we're not
a lot of drinkers I have been a happy
beneficiary role does business have in a
moment like this and you've been a
leader in pointing out the very unique
responsibilities that especially large
firms have been in around the world but
uniquely saw in a place like South
Africa for the reasons you mentioned now
here we are you know in a situation that
then nobody had wished for or expected
even we thought we had seen the bottom
and apparently we had not what is the
role of business in a situation big
business corporate business South Africa
in a situation like this besides so so
some company is of course in some
industries have been hit extremely hard
they've gone from thriving sectors like
tourism to zero as has happened all
around the world and so it's support to
see what we can do to support those most
vulnerable and some of the big companies
are going to come under cashflow
pressure because the big companies have
undertaken to keep paying employees in
the mean time unlike in Europe where
governments are subsidizing employee
salaries we just don't have the
resources to do that so there is going
to be a moment up there in the next 60
90 days where that becomes an issue what
government have done is increased the
social grant it's a small grants but
it's a survival grant and then what
business has done is contributed these
funds to assist and that's been fairly
successful I was worried a week or two
ago that we might find literally
starvation and that's extraordinary in a
wealthy country and and and for that to
happen but we've overcome much of the
logistics mainly through NGOs civil
society and business have worked
together very closely in the last two
months so I'm sure the critics would say
business should do more I think there's
an interesting debate that we're
starting to have between financial
capitalism the rachelle older model
which has been the dominant logic in
South Africa and a more developmental
form of capitalism where business is
owns and embeds itself in the life of
the nation a friend of mine said to me
an interesting thing about this time in
South Africa you know we've had 25 years
of democracy and given our history it
was a remarkable achievement we've had
free and fair elections and government
performs and does what it can but this
is the test of whether the country can
be a nation and we're the business and
government and civil society figure out
they need each other and therefore their
prospects for a newer higher level moral
partnership where business is really
seen as part of the fabric of the
country and some people and some
companies have been extremely generous
in in realizing that this inequality is
an immoral
and so I think there's the potential for
a new debate the problem is that
government and business is really
focused on short-term survival but we're
beginning to think about in phase three
or phase four how do we think about
restructuring this economy to make it
fairer to make it more inclusive and to
try and decrease this catastrophic and
growing inequality that we've had in
South Africa in a democracy and of
course the left is pushing in one angle
and let's call it the right or the
center is pushing in another and we'll
see if we have national leadership that
are able to construct a kind of new form
of social contract it's not just
something about restarting the old
engine it's about can we redesign some
of the fundamentals because we've gone
to Ground Zero in so many ways and do
you point about stakeholder capitalism
and one of the greatest one of the
greatest contributions of business to
society is the ability to offer millions
of people a good steady dignified
dignity offering job and if the
businesses as you mentioned remain in a
position and able to and willing to
sustain that that would truly be
meaningful far more than a CSR effort in
some ways in a moment of great national
need well I think they've made three
layers to this economy in a way so that
gives a highly sophisticated financial
market stock exchange etc it is really
professional services that are really
world-class and then it has a second
layer and then this third layer of the
majority of South Africans one has to
say who either earned their income
informally they casual laborers they
contract workers and that's where the
pain is really being felt now I don't
see us having the resources to
fundamentally
all of this like pulling a rabbit out of
a hat we're dealing with a structure
that has emerged over hundreds of years
some decades and it's very hard to
reform this because is an ideological
dogmatism that is shaped a debate very
often and then there's a structural
reality about the nature of wealth so if
government takes progressive moves too
far to the so-called left if you like
business and capital will shrink back
from investing and will feel threatened
and if government sits in the middle and
doesn't do some of the progressive
things that need to be done the people
the voters will take umbrage ultimately
and so what the prison's is doing I
think so far very effective he's talking
to both constituents and managing to
create for the first time I think in
many years since Nelson Mandela a kind
of common consensus and in general he is
very popular for having been pragmatic
for being humanitarian in his approach
and for communicating so steadfastly the
approach and we've had expert advice
from our medical scientists and we've
managed to get that across and at least
outside where one years is when other
countries are struggling with
politicians refusing to listen to
scientific advice has a history of
having done that in the past here those
very same individuals who did not get a
hearing in the past are now actively
shaping the response all the twists and
turns of South African politics policy
society it seems like at least as an
outsider one sense is a greater level of
trust in in the folks involved in well
well it's very newly emerged because six
months ago many South Africans including
the middle class were doubting the
leadership star
of ceramic poison they felt he wasn't
decisive enough he wasn't making clear
decisions he wasn't taking action on
corruption enough actually what we've
seen is a president who's had a
remarkable history as a man who built
the largest union in the world after the
Second World War he was
secretary-general of the ANC he's been a
business person he's been the deputy
president say he's had a remarkable mix
of experiences that have all now come to
the fore I think the point I wanted to
say about this different response as
opposed to the AIDS denialism and its
president and Becky is how leaders frame
the problem early becomes absolutely
decisive because the president has
authority so we implemented the disaster
management act and he seized the
initiative by shaping and framing the
problem well I think a lot of leaders
wait for the problem to emerge and
they're not sure they'd like a a rabbit
in the headlights and from a pause a
demonstrative clarity about this
firmness that won him a lot of support
in cabinets and elsewhere when you say
he framed it early on I certainly
wouldn't you mean can you elaborate on
that well you know as we watched as we
were slightly lagging so we had a sort
of three week lag to see the data and we
saw the difference between countries
that lockdown and those that didn't and
he firmly seized on the idea with
medical advice that would be the right
thing to do to impose this very severe
shock on the economy and we will only
know in years to come whether that was
the right decision or not but it was a
decisive it was a decisive moment and he
made a decision as did the cabinet and
that's what we living through now yeah I
want to go from the lofty heights of of
residents and CEOs to those on in the on
the ground the grass roots as well as
MBA students as a as a professor
and someone who many I know for a fact
many students including our own at
London Business School look up to let me
start with the MBA students and then I
want to hear about your thoughts having
been involved in some of those food
delivery initiatives among others what
you think those who are coming up you
know going through their formative
business training in this moment what
should they be thinking what should they
be doing how should they how is it how
should this experience shape their
thinking in actions of the years I think
the first thing is that the overwhelming
majority of our students are part-time
and what we had to do is shut down the
campus and we're a face-to-face
environment and we had to move over
about four weeks into a form of digital
access and we had to pick a technology
that would be accessible to all our
students which was interesting because
we had to pick not the best technology
for the minority but the best technology
for all and we then moved we opened on
Monday all our programs are now open and
the faculty then had to switch into this
form of learning so the faculty have
been scurrying around learning how to
maximally teach in in this technology I
think the students also of course
because they part time have been dealing
with the total change in their work
environments and learning to work from
home with all the challenges that we all
have been talking about and this is a
particularly big challenge for leaders
because you've lost the face-to-face if
you know your team that's fine
but you've lost the sort of impact and
the research is showing that the the
Xoom meetings that we're all doing our
exhausting meetings because you've lost
something that's almost hard to define
and they're dealing with all the other
social pressures are being at home our
kids have been on holiday so MBAs as
they always are having to juggle all
those balls learn to learn in a
different mode receive from faculty
whatever we doing in a different mode
in doing their jobs and dealing with
this new social environment so that adds
up to a lot of pain which hopefully will
lead to a lot of game which is
assumptions that we all hold so dear
about our life is what work is our
economies and company should function
have all been suspended and we've gone
to the wormhole into a new world and we
don't know what that new world is going
to come out in all its facets and
they're those who think it's all going
to get back to normal and then there
people say we'll never be the same they
live we all living moment by moments and
that puts a lot of psychological
pressure on the nba's so far from what
we've seen there's been a very good
response and everyone realizes we're in
the same boat so there's a high level of
cooperation very little criticism of
what the decisions our school has made
so that's gone pretty pretty well if I
talk a bit about on the ground I sort of
got zoomed out eventually after so many
policy discussions that we were having
because the group I'm part of the
presidency asked us to advise them so we
did and we had countless meetings with
governments and with the President
himself and then with ministers and and
executives in government and then with
civil society where I'm also connected
many many meetings about the issue
what's to be done it cetera but I found
I reached a point where I had to I had
to do something rather than talk about
us and so a few of us got together and
started raising funds for food parcel
delivery one of the dilemmas in South
Africa is we have a very large migrant
population many of whom are not
registered and the government policy has
largely been not to feed them and these
are many of the casual informal laborers
ours referring to earlier so we set
about supporting them on the ground do
you mean by greeting from the wrists in
pub we and so on yes and so we we raised
funds and that got me into these
communities in fact the video we took of
5,000 people lining up in a totally
disciplined way two days ago is gone
totally viral all over the world because
we delivered 6,000 parcels into a 40,000
person community and informal settlement
like a favela and they
total discipline and so we raising the
funds to keep them fed I welcome to its
and and I've just spent the morning in
there and you know it's amazing the
poverty these people are living under
and they the ones who really lost their
income so the support for them and we
were beginning to change the
government's attitude to supporting them
as well it's a humanitarian question I
felt very morally compromised and I was
a citizen of a country that had allowed
people in but when there was a crisis
wasn't prepared to support them so we've
been getting that message across as you
know we go we visit South Africa once a
year from the rainbow nation actually
includes many nations so grateful that
you make a final question before we let
you get on with the work you're doing
what lessons would you offer giving your
experience as a global scholar from
Africa what lessons does the South
African response and sort of near-term
the expectation imply for the rest of
the world so it's a very difficult
question to answer because I think all
of us are going through a similar macro
environment you know the same stresses
and strains are but the outcomes of
difference depending on two things
what's your situation going in and what
choices you make while you're in it and
I don't know if such as any unique
lessons to learn I think there are many
countries with similar demography
economics and politics as US I don't
think there's one thing that stands out
if there is it's that we've had trouble
times in our recent history yeah and
we've come together as a constitutional
democracy which most of the world
thought was quite remarkable and what I
see is being very interesting in this
process is the opportunity to create a
nation out of a country to create a
common Lysander standing of the need for
each other the role that everybody plays
and maybe the lesson is to abandon how
you've got in the room and what I often
say is you know how we've got in the
room and what we're doing in the room is
not how we going to get out of the room
so you can take the lessons from the
past and see which of them are useful
but you have to have a realistic grip on
the current reality and then you've got
to start shaping next as a leader and
this is very very hard work I I've been
talking to CEOs of companies who accept
that they've had to mask some of their
own emotions because we do face with
very significant layoffs one of our big
giant retailers is closing down our
airline is in business rescue the
national airline be going for 80 years
so there are very hard choices and so
leaders tend to put on a good mask we
try to help them make sure that they can
manage their own emotions and what I've
learned is there three things there's
your emotional entry into it why I got
so active on the ground it helped me
cope with the policy stuff because I
felt emotionally that I was dealing with
the real issue in a very small way
secondly there's the physical action of
getting out and engaging with people and
and seeing their responses to the help
they get which is very motivating and
then thirdly there's the intellectual
challenge of defining the issues that
are in front of you in a way that are
insightful and useful to others so that
you're framing what the organization's
doing appropriately I've been working
with one big company where the sea has
just simply been outstanding because his
is daily communication to the entire
company opens up for discussion all the
time the Dean of the
school has a zoom call every day 15
minutes for all the stuff so that sort
of direct personal communication to show
people that you are in the battle you're
as vulnerable as they are maybe not
quite as vulnerable if you're a highly
paid executive but still you are in the
battle and that you're at the front of
the battle and that you will assist them
to get through this tough process I
think that's a kind of a spirit of the
best of South Africa and you witnessed
it when we won the world rugby against
England that's a joke societies around
the world are coming together in in a
sense of solidarity that very often has
been missing where we see differences
among each other and now we see my god
we're all in this together on the other
hand there have been worries in fact my
colleague Ilyas who you know is doing
some remarkable work about how far right
or extremist movements or politicians
are harnessing these what is happening
right now to their own end and what
would you describe to us about South
Africa gives me hope that despite the
very difficult especially the last few
years have not been easy either and if a
horrible crisis like this can lead to
good outcomes in South Africa can lead
to lead to greater trust in institutions
in South Africa that would be a great
gift to the rest of the world not least
to South Africa rest of the world as
well and with that Nik we should let you
go and thank you for your gift of time
and insight I always
thank so much Rajesh and and good luck
to you and lbs on figuring your way and
this kind of contribution which is
Israeli needed we're we're all looking
for guidance
thank you for prodding me a platform for
all of us thank you and that's the
perfect cue for me to note to those
listening and watching that there are
there are more insights in our covert
conversations page so please check those
out there are articles or background
materials and we'll be having many more
such conversations Nick thank you as
they say and speak to you pleasure
[Music]

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### UK household debt before and after the crisis | Wheeler Institute | LBS
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK9bHF4ZA_Y

Transcrição não disponível

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