Professors Adam Rose and Richard John made presentations at the recent DHS Centers of Excellence Virtual Workshop on Supply of Labor During the Pandemic, August 21, 2020. The Workshop was one of four being held this month as part of the DHS Office of University Programs Centers of Excellence initiative on supply-chain aspects of COVID-19. The purpose is to share knowledge and to stimulate new research collaboration across centers. Professor Rose is on the overall organizing committee and was a co-organizer of this Workshop. Additional information can be found on the website of the on the Command, Control, and Operability Center for Advanced Data Analysis (CCICADA) website: https://ccicada.org/?s=Supply+chain+Workshops
The Workshop’s Panel I on Workplace Safety and Workforce Issues consisted of presentations by speakers with a broad array of backgrounds ranging from civilian and military management to academic researchers. Panel II is described below. The PowerPoints for the majority of the presentations at the workshop can be found at the url above.
Panel II: Economic Costs
Moderator: Adam Rose, Director of CREATE COE
Adam Rose is a Research Professor in the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy, Director of USC’s Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE), Senior Research Fellow of the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, and a Faculty Affiliate of the University of Illinois Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI).
Tony Cheesebrough is Chief Economist for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and also an Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
Dr. Janet E. Kohlhase is a Professor of Economics at the University of Houston.
Richard John is Professor of Psychology and Associate Director at the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at the University of Southern California.
Aaron Strong is an economist at the RAND Corporation.
Professor Rose provided a general discussion of economic consequence analysis using applied general equilibrium models. His presentation included the CREATE economic consequence analysis framework, an overview of a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the entire economy as a set of interrelated supply chains, and CGE model estimates, based on six causal factors, from a recent study of real GDP impacts of COVID-19 for the United States, China, and the rest of the world.
Dr. Cheesebrough described a project sponsored by CISA, through the Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency (CAOE), on the economic effects of COVID-19 in the U.S. This project was carried out by Peter Dixon (also a CREATE Senior Research Fellow) and his team at Victoria University’s Centre of Policy Studies (CoPS) to respond to understand region- and industry-specific economic impacts of COVID-19 and public health responses, impacts of economic policy responses beyond the public health responses, and impacts on the 55 National Critical Functions (NCFs).
Professor Kohlhase’s talk focused on the threat of COVID-19 to economic growth and cultural diversity. She highlighted the shift from centralized urban work centers to virtual employees working at home and possible impacts of this shift on the inner workings of cities, urban economic growth, and equal opportunity for workers.
Professor John discussed empirical findings from a behavioral simulation study of a severe flu epidemic indicating that growth in public concern over time is impacted by geographical distance from the site of the epidemic. He also discussed findings from a recent behavioral study suggesting that individual decisions to mitigate against a natural disaster risk can be influenced by message framing, with risk seeking decisions more likely in the usual loss frame, and risk averse decisions more likely in a gain frame.
Dr. Strong described a methodology for creating COVID-19 transmission risk indices using an epidemiologically based index constructed with O*NET occupational characteristics and industry multipliers from national data. He presented results of weighted averages of transmission risk by occupation and industry and by average economic multiplier by occupation and industry.
Posted: Friday, August 21, 2020