The global economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak
The rapid development of China’s coronavirus crisis coincided with the annual idling of much of the country’s economic activity due to the Lunar New Year break, which typically runs for a week or two. Global economists have been watching the post-holiday economic restart closely. Delayed a week to allow public health officials to get a better handle on the contagion, experts are looking for clues about the extent to which one of the world’s largest economies is coming back to life amid widespread coronavirus concerns. The Gazette spoke with Harvard Business School’s Willy Shih, an expert on Asian industrial competitiveness and the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Management Practice. Q&A Willy Shih GAZETTE: Do you have a sense of whether this will be the biggest event affecting the global economy in 2020? SHIH: I think so. I don’t think people have fully appreciated what the impact is going to be because it occurred during...