We use SVAR models for 18 economies to estimate how much fiscal policy deviated from pre-pandemic norms during the Covid-19 pandemic. For most countries, fiscal policy was more expansive than the pre-pandemic norm predicts based on the state of the economy during the pandemic. The size of the...

Developments in trade finance in 2020 were largely driven by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Twelve years after the great financial crisis of 2008-09, the issue of trade finance re-emerged as a matter of urgency. While the current pandemic-related crisis did not have a financial cause, one...

We find that macroeconomic uncertainty plays a significant role in U.S. monetary policy. First, we construct a measure of uncertainty as felt by policymakers at the time of making their rate-setting decisions. This measure is derived from a real-time, Bayesian estimation of a small monetary VAR...