The claim that social protection is a luxury good-with a national income elasticity exceeding unity-has been influential. The paper tests the "luxury good hypothesis" using newly-assembled data on social protection spending across countries since 1995, treating the pandemic period separately, as...

This paper uses a newly assembled data set on various types of social protection spending in 154 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 to analyze the effect of the electoral cycle on the size and composition of the social protection stimulus budget. The analysis shows that the...

This paper analyzes the reopening process of countries in Europe and Central Asia after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and provides evidence on the effects of different reopening trajectories and their timing and speed on economic recovery. The analysis indicates that countries that...

The size of the economic shocks triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of the associated non-pharmaceutical interventions have not been fully assessed, because the official economic indicators have not been published. This paper provides estimates of the economic impacts of the...

This paper examines the effectiveness of income protection and job protection policies for the post-pandemic economic recovery of the second half of 2020 through 2021. The paper is based on a new data set of the budgets of social protection programs implemented as a part of the pandemic stimulus...

Economic growth slowed sharply last year in Europe and Central Asia, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a surge in inflation, and the sharp tightening of monetary policy and financing conditions hit private consumption, investment, and trade. The marked increase in food and energy prices boosted...