The global recovery continues but the momentum has weakened, hobbled by the pandemic. Fueled by the highly transmissible Delta variant, the recorded global COVID-19 death toll has risen close to 5 million and health risks abound, holding back a full return to normalcy. Pandemic outbreaks in...

The COVID-19 pandemic is inflicting high and rising human costs worldwide, and the necessary protection measures are severely impacting economic activity. As a result of the pandemic, the global economy is projected to contract sharply by -3 percent in 2020, much worse than during the 2008-09...

Although recent vaccine approvals have raised hopes of a turnaround in the pandemic later this year, renewed waves and new variants of the virus pose concerns for the outlook. Amid exceptional uncertainty, the global economy is projected to grow 5.5% in 2021 and 4.2% in 2022

The Research Summaries in this issue of the IMF Research Bulletin cover 'Tax Capacity and Growth' (by Vitor Gaspar, Laura Jaramillo, and Philippe Wingender), and 'U.S. Shale Revolution and Its Spillover Effects on the Global Economy' (Ravi Balakrishnan, Keiko Honjo, Akito Matsumoto, and Andrea...