Cover Image
Read Now

The Rise in Inequality after Pandemics Can Fiscal Support Play a Mitigating Role?

Major epidemics of the last two decades (SARS, H1N1, MERS, Ebola and Zika) have been followed by increases in inequality (Furceri, Loungani, Ostry and Pizzuto, 2020). In this paper, we show that the extent of fiscal consolidation in the years following the onset of these pandemics has played an impo...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Furceri, Davide
Other Authors: Loungani, Prakash, Ostry, Jonathan, Pizzuto, Pietro
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 2021
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
Health Behavior
Informal Economy
Foreign Exchange
Underground Econom
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
LEADER 02156nmm a2200325 u 4500
001 EB002081887
003 EBX01000000000000001221977
005 00000000000000.0
007 cr|||||||||||||||||||||
008 220928 ||| eng
020 |a 9781513582405 
100 1 |a Furceri, Davide 
245 0 0 |a The Rise in Inequality after Pandemics  |b Can Fiscal Support Play a Mitigating Role?  |c Davide Furceri, Prakash Loungani, Jonathan Ostry, Pietro Pizzuto 
260 |a Washington, D.C.  |b International Monetary Fund  |c 2021 
300 |a 26 pages 
653 |a Aggregate Factor Income Distribution 
653 |a Health Behavior 
653 |a Informal Economy 
653 |a Foreign Exchange 
653 |a Underground Econom 
700 1 |a Loungani, Prakash 
700 1 |a Ostry, Jonathan 
700 1 |a Pizzuto, Pietro 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b IMF  |a International Monetary Fund 
490 0 |a IMF Working Papers 
028 5 0 |a 10.5089/9781513582405.001 
856 4 0 |u http://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2021/120/001.2021.issue-120-en.xml  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
082 0 |a 330 
520 |a Major epidemics of the last two decades (SARS, H1N1, MERS, Ebola and Zika) have been followed by increases in inequality (Furceri, Loungani, Ostry and Pizzuto, 2020). In this paper, we show that the extent of fiscal consolidation in the years following the onset of these pandemics has played an important role in determining the extent of the increase in inequality. Episodes marked by extreme austerity-measured using either the government's fiscal balance, health expenditures or redistribution-have been associated with an increase in the Gini measure of inequality three times as large as in episodes where fiscal policy has been more supportive. We survey the evidence thus far on the distributional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which suggests that inequality is likely to increase in the absence of strong policy actions. We review the case made by many observers (IMF 2020; Stiglitz 2020; Sandbu 2020b) that fiscal support should not be withdrawn prematurely despite understandable concerns about high public debt-to-GDP ratios 

Similar Items