The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the relationship between sovereigns and banks-the so-called sovereign-bank nexus-in emerging market economies to the fore as bank holdings of domestic sovereign debt have surged. This paper examines the empirical relevance of this nexus to assess how it could...

The COVID-19 pandemic altered consumption patterns significantly in a short period of time. However, official inflation statistics take time to reflect these changes in the weights of the CPI consumption basket. Using credit card data for the UK and Germany, we document how consumption patterns...

This paper employs a two-country New Keynesian DSGE model to assess the macroeconomic impact of the changes in monetary policy frameworks and the fiscal support in the U.S. and euro area during the pandemic. Moving from a previous target of "below, but close to 2 percent" to a formal symmetric...

This paper investigates whether the COVID-19 recession led to an increase in demand for digital occupations in the United States. Using O*NET to capture the digital content of occupations, we find that regions that were hit harder by the COVID-19 recession experienced a larger increase in the...

This paper studies whether bank ownership influenced lending behavior during the COVID-19 shock. It finds that, similar to previous episodes of financial distress, foreign banks appear to have played a shock-transmitting role, as there was a sharp slowdown in lending by foreign banks' affiliates...

The paper reexamines the main private savings determinants in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), followed by an analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic impact on private savings in SSA and other country groupings. Using an unbalanced panel data from 1983−2021 for 31 SSA economies, the paper finds that real...

After dropping sharply in the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, commercial real estate prices are on the mend. However, the initial price decline, as well as the pace of recovery, vary widely across regions and different segments of the commercial real estate market. This note analyzes the...

Many countries have deployed substantial fiscal packages to cushion the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. A historical look at past pandemics and epidemics highlights concomitant public sector support in response to health crises. This paper assesses how fiscal multipliers could vary...

In this paper, we present a framework for assessing the effectiveness of different business closure policies, using New York City as a case study. Business closure policies have been widely implemented in an attempt to slow down the pandemic, but it is difficult to measure the contribution of...

Global current account balances-the overall size of current account deficits and surpluses-continued to widen in 2021 to 3.5 percent of world GDP, and are expected to widen again this year. The IMF's multilateral approach suggests that global excess balances narrowed to 0.9 percent of world GDP...