The recent financial crisis was caused by a combination of asset price bubbles, mainly in the real estate sector, and a credit bubble that led to excessive leverage. A recurrent theme of this paper is that an appropriate assessment of the crisis should be made in light of the bubble that...

Labour markets have reacted very differently to the COVID-19 crisis. In the US, the impact on unemployment rates was rapid across all states. They increased sharply in March and April 2020 and recovered steadily thereafter. In Europe, by contrast, unemployment increased far less, and the...

Using panel data covering 180 countries over six decades, this paper shows that recessions are systematically associated with higher mortality rates. During years when GDP falls, death rates rise, primarily in emerging market and developing economies and there among children in particular. In...