A guide to the pandemic economy: essential reading about the long-term implications of our current crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a firehose of information (much of it wrong) and an avalanche of opinions (many of them ill-founded). Most of us are so distracted by the everyday awfulness that we don't see the broader issues in play. In this book, economist Joshua Gans steps back from the short-term chaos to take a clear and systematic look at how economic choices are being made in response to COVID-19. He shows that containing the virus and pausing the economy—without letting businesses fail and people lose their jobs—are the necessary first steps.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has seen governments across developing Asia move significant amounts of capital into relief efforts that have saved countless lives and livelihoods. But emerging economic recovery packages must not upset the sensitive balance between economic growth and the region’s natural capital. Many global thinkers are advocating the critical role of green infrastructure in supporting economic growth and livelihoods, while safeguarding the Paris Agreement targets. This publication examines green and innovative finance mechanisms that can be incorporated into government recovery strategies to incentivize green infrastructure investment. These mechanisms can play a key role in catalyzing much-needed funds from private capital for a green and sustainable regional recovery.

These proceedings constitute a selection of best papers from the 3rd International Conference on Economics and Social Sciences, Innovative Models to Revive the Global Economy, ICESS 2020, held in Bucharest, Romania, in October 2020. This book is a collection of research findings and perspectives related to recent economic challenges determined by the global crisis due to COVID 19, led by the set of improvements and changes in the economic, societal, and technological structures and processes towards the effort of reaching the sustainability goals. During a crisis, countries, and businesses must respond promptly to ensure survival. They need to rethink social contracts, redefine work and consumption, mobilize resources at speed and scale, and at the same time rethink patterns from global to local. The innovative models presented in this book aim to ensure simultaneous economic development, social development, and environmental protection, to achieve a higher quality of life for all people, and protect all living beings and the planet.

The Policy Actions for COVID-19 Economic Recovery (PACER) Dialogues were held from June to September 2020 as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic accelerated around the world. They shared cutting-edge knowledge and best practices to help countries in Southeast Asia and the People's Republic of China strengthen cooperation to mitigate the devastating effects of COVID-19 and accelerate their economic recovery. This compendium of 13 policy briefs summarizes the discussions, recommendations, and actionable insights from the PACER Dialogues.

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a health and economic crisis of unprecedented scope. As economists and policymakers turn to the task of recovery, protecting human rights remains intrinsically important, both morally and legally. It is also instrumental to the ends of public health and economic resilience. This Article argues that the human rights to life, health, education, social security, housing, food, water and sanitation - the so-called economic and social rights - are as essential as civil and political protections. Moreover, rather than simply ameliorate the inevitable indignities and material deprivations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the implementation of duties to respect economic and social rights can help ensure their protection in the post-COVID-19 economy. For this to occur, however, the Article suggests that the application of human rights to the economic recovery should be informed by a longer history of economic crises, assisted by both international and comparative economic and social rights frameworks, and open to the institutional reimagination that the idea of human rights helps to generate.

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised challenges in the assessment of macroeconomic and microeconomic impacts. The impacts of COVID-19 on the macro and micro sectors of the economy and the current and future economic tendencies have yet to be determined. The impact of COVID-19 research holds limitless potential, but the necessary research for professionals to understand the economic impacts is lacking and unclear. Economic Impact and Recovery Following a Global Health Crisis assesses the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic with a focus on the macroeconomic and microeconomic and uses various statistical methods and real-world data to predict and establish specific trends within the economy. Covering topics such as firm behavior and national economies, it is ideal for policymakers, industry professionals, researchers, academicians, instructors, and students.

Although the global economy is forecasted to shrink by 4.4 percent in 2020 (IMF 2020), the Egyptian economy is proving resilient to the immense human and financial costs caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic. This resilience is mainly explained by the successful implementation of the economic reform program since 2016 that provided more fiscal space to withstand the adverse impact of the COVID-19 crisis. However, that Egypt’s economy is holding up is also due to the rapid response and proactive measures to limit the impact of the virus that were implemented by the Egyptian Government since March 2020 (MPED 2020). These enabled the country to avoid a full lockdown policy (Figure 1). While Egypt posted negative economic growth rates from April to June 2020 at the height of the crisis, overall economic growth was still positive at 3.6 percent for fiscal year (FY) 2019/20. This estimate is only slightly lower than the initial projection of the impact of the pandemic on Egypt’s economy of an annual economic growth equal to 3.8 percent, as estimated by staff of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development (MPED) (Breisinger et al. 2020). The deviation between the early and final estimate can be mainly explained by the lower than expected growth rates in the manufacturing and health services sectors and the better than expected performance of the trade and transport sectors.

Healing the economic and social wounds inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic will take time, but the long road to recovery presents a unique opportunity to build back better. To catalyze change and succeed in the post-pandemic era, economic development policy and practice must see the crisis as an opportunity to rethink and redesign regional economic systems. This will involve creating a shared understanding of – and policies to address – the differential impacts of the pandemic across occupations, industries, and socioeconomic groups. This book explores the challenges and opportunities heralded by the virus in the broadest sense and presents case studies on equitable and inclusive economic recoveries.