It may prove to be weak medicine, a cocktail concocted for more familiar economic afflictions like a sudden loss of spending power caused by a stock market crash or a plunge in real estate prices.
This crisis is different. From Asia to Europe to North America, people are losing their jobs by government fiat . Workers are required to stay home to limit the spread of a deadly virus. Faced with a public health emergency, the government is suppressing business, rendering dubious the value of standard stimulus measures.
Many things are taking place:
Free exchange - How to pay for the pandemic | Finance and economics | The Economist
T HIS IS NO time to fret about government debt. While cases of covid-19 soar and economic activity grinds to a halt, governments are right to throw all the resources they can at efforts to limit the pandemic's human and economic costs. This urgency notwithstanding, the crisis will push sovereign-debt burdens into new territory.
The history of government borrowing over the past hundred years or so can be divided into three periods. Between the start of the first world war and that of the second, conflict, rebuilding and the Great Depression all placed enormous demands on government balance-sheets. During this tumultuous period, governments were often at the mercy of market sentiment.
The Economics of a Plate of Food in India | Economic and Political Weekly
While the chapter talks about improving affordability of food, especially since 2015–16, the results must be taken with some caution. In measuring the affordability of a thali, the estimates have considered only about 3.3% of the total workforce of the country. This is just a subset of the workforce associated with the organised manufacturing sector.
Again, while the chapter claims that the affordability in prices is because of a series of reforms that the central government has taken in the last five years, like the Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyan (PM-AASHA), Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY), Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), the Electronic-National Agricultural Market (e-NAM), etc, there is no mention of the impact of such schemes on Indian agriculture and the channels through which these might work.
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
Were you following this:
The Race Between Economics and COVID-19 by Mohamed A. El-Erian - Project Syndicate
That response is set to be both novel and inevitably costly. Governments and central banks are pursuing unprecedented measures to mitigate the global downturn, lest a now-certain global recession gives way to a depression (already an uncomfortably high risk). As they do, we will likely see a further erosion of the distinction between mainstream economics in advanced economies and in developing economies.
Such a change is sorely needed. With overwhelming evidence of massive declines in consumption and production across countries, analysts in advanced economies must reckon, first and foremost, with a phenomenon that was hitherto familiar only to fragile/failed states and communities devastated by natural disasters: an economic sudden stop, together with the cascade of devastation that can follow from it. They will then face other challenges that are more familiar to developing countries.
Economic woes harken to 1930s
Nearly a century later, the U.S. economy is all but shut down, and layoffs are soaring at small businesses and major industries. A devastating global recession looks inevitable. Deepening the threat, a global oil price war has started. Some economists foresee an economic downturn to rival the Great Depression.
"With the markets destroying wealth so quickly, the two shocks we're seeing globally -- the coronavirus and the oil-price war -- could morph into a financial crisis," said Carmen Reinhart, a professor of economics and finance at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "We will see higher default rates and business failures. It could be like the 1930s."
Coronavirus: Checkbook inventor is potential stimulus check distributor
Chances are that your first checkbook bore the stamp "Deluxe" on the cover. Now there's a good chance that if you receive a coronavirus stimulus check from the federal government, it could be sent by Deluxe.
Founded in 1915 by W. R. Hotchkiss, who is credited with creating the first flat checkbook, Shoreview, Minnesota-based Deluxe remains a major printer of checks. As one of the few companies with the capabilities to handle payments on this scale, Deluxe is in a good position to be among the disbursement agents for the coronavirus government payments .
Pandemic Economics: 'Much Worse, Very Quickly' | The New York Review of Books | Daily
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This crisis is global, and the torrid headlines keep coming. My family in the UK is under lockdown and they can only go out for a walk once a day. All of India is effectively in quarantine for three weeks. International travel from the US has been stopped and domestic travel has ground to a halt. Airlines are cancelling flights left and right. Cruises have stopped.
Happening on Twitter
The Danish government plans to cover 75 to 90% of workers' wages to prevent mass unemployment during the coronaviru… https://t.co/7KsPUuIGRP nytimes (from New York City) Sat Mar 28 18:20:07 +0000 2020
As I said from the beginning, this should have been the response here in 🇺🇸. We should have kept people on payroll… https://t.co/zk2sTqSGfC StephanieKelton (from moving target) Sat Mar 28 13:29:04 +0000 2020
The US might have been better suited to a rescue that had government effectively nationalizing payrolls, writing pa… https://t.co/UKVIgqr822 petersgoodman (from London, England) Sat Mar 28 09:51:32 +0000 2020
In Denmark, people are losing their jobs by government fiat. The government is helping Danish workers by continui… https://t.co/wJOCOZImZV WaywardWinifred (from #Bernie2020) Sat Mar 28 18:27:46 +0000 2020
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