Many countries have deployed substantial fiscal packages to cushion the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. A historical look at past pandemics and epidemics highlights concomitant public sector support in response to health crises. This paper assesses how fiscal multipliers could vary...

We use a decomposition methodology to analyze the factors underlying the differentiated output losses of European countries in 2020. Our findings are fourfold: First, 2020 growth outcomes can be explained by differences in mobility, underlying growth trends, and pre-pandemic country...

Many countries have deployed substantial fiscal packages to cushion the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. A historical look at past pandemics and epidemics highlights concomitant public sector support in response to health crises. This paper assesses how fiscal multipliers could vary...

The paper extends the work of Deaton (2021) by exploring the period of post-crisis recovery in 2021-2024. The paper documents per-capita income divergence during the period of post-shock recovery, with countries at the bottom of the income distribution falling significantly behind. Findings...

While standard demand factors perform well in predicting historical trade patterns, they fail conspicuously in 2020, when pandemic-specific factors played a key role above and beyond demand. Prediction errors from a multilateral import demand model in 2020 vary systematically with the health...

We introduce a new comprehensive announcement-level database tracking the extraordinary fiscal, monetary, prudential, and other policies that countries adopted in response to Covid-19. The database provides detailed information, including sizes where available, for 28 granular policies adopted...

A lack of timely financing for purchases of vaccines and other health products impeded the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on analysis of contract signature and delivery dates in COVID-19 vaccine advance purchase agreements, this paper finds that 60-75 percent of the delay in...

Pandemics and epidemics pose risks to lives, societies, and economies, and their frequency is expected to increase as rising trade and increased human interaction with animals leads to the emergence of new diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic teaches us that we can and must be better prepared, with...

Traditional models relying on standard variables like the U.S. Hispanic unemployment rate fared well in explaining remittances to CAPDR and Mexico during the pre-pandemic period. However, they fail to predict the sustained growth in remittances since June 2020, including the significant increase...

The COVID-19 crisis has had a tremendous economic impact for all countries. Yet, assessing the full impact of the crisis has been frequently hampered by the delayed publication of official GDP statistics in several emerging market and developing economies. This paper outlines a machine-learning...