ABSTRACT:In the spring of 2020, the initial surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths was flattened using a combination of economic shutdowns and noneconomic non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). The possibility of a second wave of infections and deaths raises the question of what interventions can be used to significantly reduce deaths while supporting, not preventing, economic recovery. We use a five-age epidemiological model combined with sixty-six-sector economic accounting to examine policies to avert and to respond to a second wave. We find that a second round of economic shutdowns alone are neither sufficient nor necessary to avert or quell a second wave. In contrast, noneconomic NPIs, such as wearing masks and personal distancing, increasing testing and quarantine, reintroducing restrictions on social and recreational gatherings, and enhancing protections for the elderly together can mitigate a second wave while leaving room for an economic recovery.
{"title":"Policies for a Second Wave","authors":"D. Baqaee, E. Farhi, M. Mina, J. Stock","doi":"10.1353/eca.2020.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/eca.2020.0013","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:In the spring of 2020, the initial surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths was flattened using a combination of economic shutdowns and noneconomic non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). The possibility of a second wave of infections and deaths raises the question of what interventions can be used to significantly reduce deaths while supporting, not preventing, economic recovery. We use a five-age epidemiological model combined with sixty-six-sector economic accounting to examine policies to avert and to respond to a second wave. We find that a second round of economic shutdowns alone are neither sufficient nor necessary to avert or quell a second wave. In contrast, noneconomic NPIs, such as wearing masks and personal distancing, increasing testing and quarantine, reintroducing restrictions on social and recreational gatherings, and enhancing protections for the elderly together can mitigate a second wave while leaving room for an economic recovery.","PeriodicalId":51405,"journal":{"name":"Brookings Papers on Economic Activity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86683221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:Early in 2020, the general expectation was that the coronavirus pandemic's effects would be more severe in developing countries than in advanced economies, on both the public health and economic fronts. Preliminary evidence as of July 2020 supports a more optimistic assessment. To date, most low- and middle-income countries have a significantly lower death toll per capita than richer countries, a pattern that can be partially explained by younger populations and limited obesity. On the economic front, emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) have seen massive capital outflows and large price declines for certain commodities, especially oil and nonprecious metals, but net capital outflows are in line with earlier commodity price shocks. While there is considerable heterogeneity in how specific countries will be affected in the short and medium run, we are cautiously optimistic that financial markets in the largest EMDEs, especially those not reliant on energy and metal exports, could recover quickly—assuming the disease burden is ultimately not as dire in these countries. In the long run, the highest costs may be due to the indirect effects of virus containment policies on poverty, health, and education as well as the effects of accelerating deglobalization on EMDEs. An important caveat is that there is still considerable uncertainty about the future course of the pandemic and the consequences of new waves of infections.
{"title":"The Effects of the Coronavirus Pandemic in Emerging Market and Developing Economies: An Optimistic Preliminary Account","authors":"P. Goldberg, T. Reed","doi":"10.1353/eca.2020.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/eca.2020.0009","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Early in 2020, the general expectation was that the coronavirus pandemic's effects would be more severe in developing countries than in advanced economies, on both the public health and economic fronts. Preliminary evidence as of July 2020 supports a more optimistic assessment. To date, most low- and middle-income countries have a significantly lower death toll per capita than richer countries, a pattern that can be partially explained by younger populations and limited obesity. On the economic front, emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) have seen massive capital outflows and large price declines for certain commodities, especially oil and nonprecious metals, but net capital outflows are in line with earlier commodity price shocks. While there is considerable heterogeneity in how specific countries will be affected in the short and medium run, we are cautiously optimistic that financial markets in the largest EMDEs, especially those not reliant on energy and metal exports, could recover quickly—assuming the disease burden is ultimately not as dire in these countries. In the long run, the highest costs may be due to the indirect effects of virus containment policies on poverty, health, and education as well as the effects of accelerating deglobalization on EMDEs. An important caveat is that there is still considerable uncertainty about the future course of the pandemic and the consequences of new waves of infections.","PeriodicalId":51405,"journal":{"name":"Brookings Papers on Economic Activity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88765958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:Many business sectors and households face an unprecedented loss of income in the current COVID-19 recession, triggering financial distress, separations, and bankruptcy. Rather than stimulating demand, government policy's main aim should be to provide insurance to firms and workers to avoid undue scarring that will hamper a recovery once the pandemic is past. We develop a corporate finance framework to guide interventions in credit markets to avoid such scarring. We emphasize three main results. First, policy should inject liquidity into small and medium-sized firms that are liquidity constrained and for which social costs of bankruptcy are high. Second, large firms for whom solvency is the dominant issue require a more nuanced approach. Debt overhang creates a distortion, leading these firms to fire workers, forgo expenditures that maintain enterprise value, and delay filing for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy longer than is socially efficient. Government resources toward reducing the legal and financial costs of bankruptcy are unambiguously beneficial. Policies that reduce funding costs are only socially desirable if the pandemic is expected to be short-lived and if bankruptcy costs are high. Last, transfers necessary to avoid bankruptcy allow borrowers to continue paying their mortgages or credit card bills and ultimately benefit owners of assets such as real estate or credit card receivables. Taxes to fund transfers should be raised from these asset owners.
{"title":"Corporate Debt Overhang and Credit Policy","authors":"Markus K. Brunnermeier, A. Krishnamurthy","doi":"10.1353/eca.2020.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/eca.2020.0014","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Many business sectors and households face an unprecedented loss of income in the current COVID-19 recession, triggering financial distress, separations, and bankruptcy. Rather than stimulating demand, government policy's main aim should be to provide insurance to firms and workers to avoid undue scarring that will hamper a recovery once the pandemic is past. We develop a corporate finance framework to guide interventions in credit markets to avoid such scarring. We emphasize three main results. First, policy should inject liquidity into small and medium-sized firms that are liquidity constrained and for which social costs of bankruptcy are high. Second, large firms for whom solvency is the dominant issue require a more nuanced approach. Debt overhang creates a distortion, leading these firms to fire workers, forgo expenditures that maintain enterprise value, and delay filing for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy longer than is socially efficient. Government resources toward reducing the legal and financial costs of bankruptcy are unambiguously beneficial. Policies that reduce funding costs are only socially desirable if the pandemic is expected to be short-lived and if bankruptcy costs are high. Last, transfers necessary to avoid bankruptcy allow borrowers to continue paying their mortgages or credit card bills and ultimately benefit owners of assets such as real estate or credit card receivables. Taxes to fund transfers should be raised from these asset owners.","PeriodicalId":51405,"journal":{"name":"Brookings Papers on Economic Activity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77815358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Comments and Discussion","authors":"K. Abraham","doi":"10.1353/eca.2020.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/eca.2020.0017","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51405,"journal":{"name":"Brookings Papers on Economic Activity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79651320","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Comments and Discussion","authors":"V. Chernozhukov, C. Buckee","doi":"10.1353/eca.2020.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/eca.2020.0016","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51405,"journal":{"name":"Brookings Papers on Economic Activity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80679559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Comments and Discussion","authors":"A. Wozniak","doi":"10.1353/eca.2020.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/eca.2020.0018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51405,"journal":{"name":"Brookings Papers on Economic Activity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86178841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Comments and Discussion","authors":"Ṣebnem Kalemli-Özcan, M. Kremer","doi":"10.1353/eca.2020.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/eca.2020.0015","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51405,"journal":{"name":"Brookings Papers on Economic Activity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83742871","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Comments and Discussion","authors":"Daron Acemoglu","doi":"10.1353/eca.2020.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/eca.2020.0020","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51405,"journal":{"name":"Brookings Papers on Economic Activity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75706762","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Comments and Discussion","authors":"J. Parker","doi":"10.1353/eca.2020.0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/eca.2020.0021","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51405,"journal":{"name":"Brookings Papers on Economic Activity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82858271","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Katharine G. Abraham, J. Haltiwanger, Lea E. Rendell
ABSTRACT:We construct a generalized measure of labor market tightness based on the ratio of vacancies to effective searchers. Our generalized measure exhibits substantially less volatility than the standard measure defined as the ratio of vacancies to unemployment. Effective searchers include not only the unemployed but also those who are out of the labor force and the employed. These groups account for a substantial share of hires and their presence mutes the effects of the pronounced countercyclical movements in unemployment. The effective searcher measure also distinguishes different groups among the unemployed. During protracted contractions, the distribution of unemployment shifts toward the long-term unemployed, a group with lower relative search intensities, contributing to the smaller proportional increase in effective searchers as compared to the simple unemployment count. The Beveridge curve constructed using effective searchers is much more stable than the standard Beveridge curve. Further, the matching function for hires based on our generalized measure outperforms the matching function based on the ratio of vacancies to unemployment. Our approach thus reduces the unexplained residual variation required in the matching function to be consistent with real world data.
{"title":"How Tight Is the US Labor Market?","authors":"Katharine G. Abraham, J. Haltiwanger, Lea E. Rendell","doi":"10.1353/eca.2020.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/eca.2020.0001","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:We construct a generalized measure of labor market tightness based on the ratio of vacancies to effective searchers. Our generalized measure exhibits substantially less volatility than the standard measure defined as the ratio of vacancies to unemployment. Effective searchers include not only the unemployed but also those who are out of the labor force and the employed. These groups account for a substantial share of hires and their presence mutes the effects of the pronounced countercyclical movements in unemployment. The effective searcher measure also distinguishes different groups among the unemployed. During protracted contractions, the distribution of unemployment shifts toward the long-term unemployed, a group with lower relative search intensities, contributing to the smaller proportional increase in effective searchers as compared to the simple unemployment count. The Beveridge curve constructed using effective searchers is much more stable than the standard Beveridge curve. Further, the matching function for hires based on our generalized measure outperforms the matching function based on the ratio of vacancies to unemployment. Our approach thus reduces the unexplained residual variation required in the matching function to be consistent with real world data.","PeriodicalId":51405,"journal":{"name":"Brookings Papers on Economic Activity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2021-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/eca.2020.0001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72444999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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