Historical experience suggests that network infrastructure can be reoriented and reconstructed relatively quickly in postwar Ukraine, with the central government playing a coordinating role. Repair of the housing stock may take longer, and chronic housing shortages leading to inadequate labor...

During the pandemic, governments increased their expenditures drastically. According to IMF projections, the debt-to-GDP ratio in advanced countries will be 18 percentage points higher by the end of 2021 than before the pandemic and 10 percentage points higher in emerging markets. With rising...

The Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic bequeathed large increases in public debt. At some point governments may seek to bring down these elevated debt-to-GDP ratios, including by inflating (by raising nominal GDP). We assemble a panel of debt consolidation episodes spanning 220...