This paper sheds light on two problems in the Penn World Table (PWT) GDP estimates. First, we show that these estimates vary substantially across different versions of the PWT despite being derived from very similar underlying data and using almost identical methodologies; that this variability...

As countries around the world grapple with Covid-19, their economies are grinding to a halt. For the first time since the Great Depression both advanced economies and developing economies are in recession. Governments and central banks have responded to the pandemic and the economic crisis using...

We outline two divergent exit strategies of the U.S. from the post COVID-19 debt-overhang, and analyze their implications on Emerging Markets and global stability. The first strategy is the U.S. aiming at returning to the 2019, pre-COVID mode of loose fiscal policy and accommodating monetary...

This case study compares the importance of prevailing market factors against that of COVID-19 dynamics and policy responses in explaining the evolution of Eurozone (EZ) sovereign spreads during the first half of 2020. Focusing on daily Eurozone CDS spreads, we adopt a multi-stage econometric...

Using a large-scale survey of U.S. households during the Covid-19 pandemic, we study how new information about fiscal and monetary policy responses to the crisis affects households' expectations. We provide random subsets of participants in the Nielsen Homescan panel with different combinations...

When monetary and fiscal policy are conducted as in the euro area, output, inflation, and government bond default premia are indeterminate according to a standard general equilibrium model with sticky prices extended to include defaultable public debt. With sunspots, the model mimics the recent...

This paper analyzes effects of population aging on the labor market and determines their broad implications for public policy. It takes Germany as an example, but it equally applies to the other large economies in Continental Europe. The paper argues that, alongside the amply discussed,...

We explore two issues triggered by the crisis. First, in most advanced countries, output remains far below the pre-recession trend, suggesting hysteresis. Second, while inflation has decreased, it has decreased less than anticipated, suggesting a breakdown of the relation between inflation and...

We estimate productivities at the sector level for 72 countries and 5 decades, and examine how they evolve over time in both developed and developing countries. In both country groups, comparative advantage has become weaker: productivity grew systematically faster in sectors that were initially...

We consider several economic uncertainty indicators for the US and UK before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: implied stock market volatility, newspaper-based economic policy uncertainty, twitter chatter about economic uncertainty, subjective uncertainty about future business growth, and...