Flattening Coronavirus Curves - Otaviano Canuto

April 6, 2020

Why every country in the world is facing a challenge of flattening coronavirus curves? Which policies to contain or at least slow the spread of coronavirus have been applied? What must be done to mitigate the recession accompanying containment policies? Is "doing-nothing" economically better?

Speakers
Otaviano Canuto
Senior Fellow
Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, Affiliate Professor at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Brookings Institute. Former Vice President and Executive Director at the World Bank, Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Vice President at the Inter-American Development Bank. ...

RELATED CONTENT

  • December 16, 2020
    The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the Moroccan economy hard, as elsewhere in the world. A collapse in external demand and a lockdown lasting more than three months have profoundly altered economic activity in Morocco, causing its first recession since 1995. The implementation of the confinement and social distancing measures was strict and came two weeks after the detection of the first cases of COVID-19 in Morocco on March 2, 2020. The lockdown was extended three times and lasted aroun ...
  • Authors
    December 14, 2020
    L’économie marocaine fait face à une année 2020 extrêmement difficile et complexe. La crise provoquée par le choc de la Covid-19 est singulière, multicanale et fondamentalement différente des crises précédentes. Elle altère le système productif par un double choc d’offre et de demande, amplifié, de passage, par une crise de confiance. Alors que l’année 2020 touche à sa fin, il est crucial de dresser une première évaluation circonstanciée des ramifications de cette crise, qui permett ...
  • Authors
    Fernando S. Perobelli
    Inácio F. Araújo
    Karina S. S. Bugarin
    December 14, 2020
    This paper explores the use of simulations in policy decision-making in the Brazilian State of São Paulo in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We propose a methodology for assessing the daily economic costs of control strategies for mitigating the effects of coronavirus. The method is based on the partial hypothetical extraction approach to input–output systems. Simulated daily scenarios based on different levels of compliance to the control measures are used to help guide the design o ...
  • December 11, 2020
    Covid-19 triggered the worst and most synchronized global recession in recorded history, albeit - on current evidence - a short-lived one. The global recession was reflected in a precipitous fall in world trade, which is now recovering. The backlash against trade and globalization long ...
  • December 10, 2020
    The purposeful dissemination of misleading or outright false information by news media and foreign state actors constitutes an increasingly important factor in both the growing erosion of trust in national institutions and political polarization in many countries around the world. The d...
  • Authors
    Hanae Bezad
    Maximo Plo Seco
    Roger Hilton
    December 10, 2020
    The Atlantic basin faces considerable challenges on multiple fronts. Financial and economic struggles, coupled with political shifts and social turmoil, are reshaping the region’s geopolitical landscape. Unemployment, poverty, violence, migration, extremism, climate change and other problems are on the rise and the need to tackle them effectively is pressing. To find adequate solutions to these challenges, it is crucial to create inclusive discussions between the North and the Sout ...
  • December 8, 2020
    COVID-19 showed how unprepared the health systems are to address major pandemics. Except for China, South Korea and Japan, countries have struggled to deal with the pandemic. Lockdowns and quarantines have been incentivised as a strategy. However, many countries have struggled economica...
  • November 24, 2020
    The global economic activity has climbed up since June but there are signs that the recovery may be losing momentum. Instead of a V, U, W, or L, a square root as a recovery shape looks more likely, as we approached before in this series. And the crisis is likely to leave deep, unequal s...
  • Authors
    September 11, 2020
    Latin American and Caribbean economies need help, but organizations like the IDB are also stretched thin. First appeared at Americas Quarterly With Latin America and the Caribbean potentially facing years of difficulties due to the pandemic and related economic crises, attention has shifted to what multilateral institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) might do to help. There’s no doubt they can play a crucial role in preventing another lost decade in the region. But ...
  • Authors
    August 10, 2020
    The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released, on August 4th, its ninth annual External Sector Report, where current account imbalances and asset-liability stocks of 30 systemically large economies are approached. This time the report went beyond looking the previous year and tried to anticipate what will be some of the impacts of the still on-going COVID-19 crisis. The report shows that the global economy entered the COVID-19 crisis with a configuration of external imbalance ...