Healing the Pandemic’s Economic Scars Demands Prompt Action by Mehdi Benatiya Andaloussi, Lone Engbo Christiansen, Ashique Habib and Davide Malacrino published by IMF (5/2022).
“Challenges facing emerging market workers and students everywhere could turn to long-term damage.
The Group of Twenty economies continue their recoveries from the pandemic, but the unprecedented shock could still leave long-lasting scars that reduce economic prospects compared with their pre-crisis trends.
Pandemic-induced losses for both economic output and employment will be significant in coming years, as discussed in our April World Economic Outlook. Emerging market economies are likely to endure greater losses because they had relatively less access to vaccines and their pandemic-support packages were smaller. For many economies, the outbreak of the war in Ukraine is adding to the challenges.
Our new analytical work finds that, among the key causes of scarring from the pandemic are the prospective weak labor market recoveries in emerging market economies and the severe disruptions to schooling over the past two years across both advanced and emerging economies. Policymakers must act promptly to repair the damage from the crisis and prevent decades of diminished economic output from lost human capital…”
