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39 These insights are relevant to today’s crisis. If the health crisis is mismanaged, it could linger for years and lead to a more persistent crisis. If our economic policies are not aggressive enough, they could make the economic effects of the crisis even larger. Continued macroeconomic stimulus, where policy space exists, is needed using an array of policy instruments. While these are standard recipes for any crisis, our research highlights that, in the presence of hysteresis and in the case of a large and persistent event like the one we are witnessing, the costs of policy mistakes are very large. Now is not the time to doubt or err on the side of caution when it comes to expansionary economic policies. ©International Monetary Fund. Not for Redistribution 40 References Aghion, Philippe, Philippe Askenazy, Nicolas Berman, Gilbert Cette, and Laurent Eymard, 2012, “Credit Constraints and the Cyclicality of R&D Investment: Evidence from France.” Journal of the European Economic Association 10(5):1001–1024. Aghion, Philippe, and Peter Howitt, 1992, “A Model of Growth Through Creative Destruction.” Econometrica 60(2):323–351. Aghion, Philippe, and Gilles Saint-Paul, 1991, “On the Virtue of Bad times: An Analysis of the Interaction between Economic Fluctuations and Productivity Growth.” CEPR Discussion Papers 578. Centre for Economic Policy Research, London. Anzoategui, Diego, Diego Comin, Mark Gertler, and Joseba Martinez, 2019, “Endogenous Technology Adoption and R&D as Sources of Business Cycle Persistence.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 11(3):67–110. Arrow, Kenneth J., 1962, “The Economic Implications of Learning by Doing.” The Review of Economic Studies 29(3):155–173.
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