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Via Chad Slater of Morphic Asset Management at Livewire:
I worked through September 11, 2001. It was argued that the event, plus the new security regime, would see people less willing to travel by plane. Nope. Americans were all back on planes within months. At an individual level, how many are sticking to their New Year’s diet four months in?
So why may COVID-19 be different? I now know that in psychology repetition is the key to changing habits. A University College of London study in 2009 showed that it takes an average of 66 days for a new behaviour to become automatic. Many parts of the world are now entering the second month of lockdown and social distancing.
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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
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