With a global depression looming, no country will be able to avoid the need for massive stimulus spending and the explosion of debt that will come with it. While advanced economies have creative options for managing these claims, it is already obvious that developing countries will need a more radical solution.
NEW YORK – The COVID-19 crisis will leave many private and public borrowers saddled with unsustainable debt. We are still in the “pre-Keynesian” supply-shock-cum-derived-demand-shock phase of what is likely to be a global depression. But once the virus is mostly vanquished, households will engage in precautionary saving, and businesses will be reluctant to commit to capital expenditures, driving a further decline in aggregate demand – the Keynesian phase. Deficit-financed fiscal stimulus, monetized where possible, will probably be the only tool capable of closing the output gap.
NEW YORK – The COVID-19 crisis will leave many private and public borrowers saddled with unsustainable debt. We are still in the “pre-Keynesian” supply-shock-cum-derived-demand-shock phase of what is likely to be a global depression. But once the virus is mostly vanquished, households will engage in precautionary saving, and businesses will be reluctant to commit to capital expenditures, driving a further decline in aggregate demand – the Keynesian phase. Deficit-financed fiscal stimulus, monetized where possible, will probably be the only tool capable of closing the output gap.