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A computational lens on economics

The COVID-19 pandemic is a dual crisis On one hand, it is a global health crisis with millions of cases and hundreds of thousands of deaths At the same time, decisions by individuals and governments in response to the pandemic have led to a severe economic slowdown, the likes of which has not seen since the Great Depression in the 20th century But, as the author wrote in a May 2020 column, economics can be argued to be one of the roots of this dual crisis Economic efficiency means goods and factors of production are distributed or allocated to their most valuable uses and waste is eliminated or minimized Free-market advocates argue that through individual self-interest and freedom of production as well as consumption, economic efficiency is achieved and the best interest of society, as a whole, are fulfilled But efficiency and optimality should not be conflated A fundamental theorem in economics states that under certain assumptions a market will tend toward a competitive, Pareto-optimal equilibrium;that is, economic efficiency is achieved