The COVID-19 pandemic is unlike any other crisis that we have experienced in that it hit all economies in the world at the same time, compromising the risk sharing ability of nations. At the onset of the pandemic, the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) jointly pledged 1.16...

We estimate the impact of fiscal stimulus measures enacted in response to COVID-19 on U.S. GDP, investment and exports. We apply a dynamic computable general equilibrium model adept at estimating total direct and indirect effects and their time-path. Initial stimulus bills, including the CARES...

It took one year of collaborative efforts to develop vaccines for the SARS-Cov-2 virus at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, governments implemented many mitigation policies in an effort to curb the spread of the virus with varying results. In this paper, using country-level...

We revisit the role of temporary layoffs in the business cycle, motivated by their unprecedented surge during the pandemic recession. We first measure the contribution of temporary layoffs to unemployment dynamics over the period 1979 to the present. While many have emphasized a stabilizing...

Solomon Islands was caught off guard when Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic. Most of its initial efforts were to ensure that the deadly virus did not venture beyond its borders into the community. As a result, it has only recorded 18 border cases to date (8 February 2021). In Solomon...

Policymakers imposed constraints on public life in order to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. At the same time, fiscal and monetary policy implemented a large range of of expansionary measures to limit the economic consequences of the pandemic and stimulate the recovery. In this paper, we assess...

When Roosevelt abandoned the gold standard in April 1933, he converted what had been effectively real government debt into nominal government debt to open the door to unbacked fiscal expansion. We argue that he followed a state-contingent fiscal rule that ran nominal-debt-financed primary...

In April 2020, the US government sent economic impact payments (EIPs) directly to households, as part of its measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic. We characterize these stimulus checks as a wealth shock for households and examine their effect on retail trading in Bitcoin. We find a...