Global Finance Can’t Afford to Ignore Externalities Any Longer

We are all grappling with coronavirus right now—both the immediate reality and what it means for the future. Governments are assuming a much bigger role in the economies of developed countries, propping up households and businesses that would otherwise be ruined by the desperate measures being taken to stop the spread of disease.

This crisis has dramatically illustrated something that climate change has been demonstrating in fits and starts over years. Finance assumes a stable, benign world, in the same way that a person with good health insurance might assume they’re protected from the broken health-care system that many of their compatriots have to endure. But that’s a fallacy.