Switzerland has navigated the COVID-19 pandemic well. The pandemic has had major social and economic impacts, but an early, strong, and sustained health and economic policy response helped contain the contraction of activity. Coordinated efforts targeting households and firms stemmed a loss of purchasing power and a rise of unemployment and bankruptcies. Recovery has commenced, but uncertainty and risks remain high, dominated by pandemic dynamics. The rebound should deepen, as vaccination proceeds, containment is eased, and domestic and global demand picks up. Fiscal support has been rightly extended in 2021, and monetary policy remains accommodative. Policies should remain supportive until there are clear signs of sustained recovery; the authorities should expand support if needed. Redirection to fostering green, digital transformation with attention to low-income earners will be needed, including to ensure that prolonged emergency support does not hinder structural changes in the economy.

Recovery was strong in 2021, but there are headwinds from the war in Ukraine. 2021 output was 1 percent higher than in 2019, but 2 percent below pre-Covid trends; unemployment is back to pre-crisis levels. Inflation has picked up (2.5 percent in April), but below other advanced economies. Strong exports/merchanting led to a higher current account surplus. Although the energy mix (nuclear, hydro) has limited exposure to Russia, exposures of commodity traders and indirect channels could be important. Growth is likely to slow to 21⁄4 percent in 2022 (3⁄4 ppt. drag from the war). Risks are to the downside (war escalation, Covid developments, real estate). Covid outlays are lower in 2022, but still large (1.2 percent of GDP). Outlays related to Ukraine are likely to be accommodated as extraordinary. The Swiss National Bank is closely monitoring inflation, seeing it returning to the 0–2 percent range this year. The authorities reactivated the sectoral CCyB for residential real estate. They are pursuing pension and labor reforms, climate initiatives, energy security, and renewed EU engagement.

With strong policy support, Finland suffered a relatively mild economic contraction in 2020 followed by a swift recovery in 2021. Medium-term growth prospects are less strong, due to adverse demographics and low productivity growth—trends that precede the pandemic. Public debt has increased due to pandemic-related support and will remain on a rising trajectory in the medium term, largely reflecting permanent spending increases.

The Icelandic economy has been severely affected by the pandemic. Sharp tourism contraction and containment measures caused real GDP to plummet by 6.6 percent in 2020. A modest recovery will take hold in 2021. Recovery prospects in the tourism sector depend on control of the epidemic and progress in global and domestic vaccine distribution, spelling a challenging outlook with possibly deep medium-term scarring. Fiscal policy should continue to support the economy for now. Policy buffers accumulated over the last decade provided space for a large fiscal support and accommodated substantial automatic stabilizers. Additional stimulus is planned in 2021 to address still large slack in the economy, mitigate scarring, and provide confidence in the event of downside risks. Medium-term policies should ensure that public debt is firmly on a downward path, while limiting the drag on growth.

The economy is recovering from a historic downturn thanks to policy support, rebounding oil prices and international financial assistance. Benefiting from the authorities’ pro-active approach, COVID-19 infection rates and fatalities have been contained. With higher oil prices and the country entering into the 2023 Presidential election cycle, there are risks of delays in much needed fiscal and exchange rate reforms. Macroeconomic and structural policies should build confidence and ensure a robust exit from the crisis.

The economic impact of the pandemic has been much milder than initially foreseen, still the outlook remains challenging. The economy, dominated by financial services, adapted quickly to telework and benefited from unprecedented policy support, both domestically and globally. Uncertainty is unusually high, dominated by the virus dynamics in the short term, with downside risks relating to a sharp rise in global risk premia, deglobalization trends, and changes in international taxation.

Ongoing conduct issues in the banking sector have sparked global discussions on the effectiveness of the corporate governance of these institutions. This dissertation commences by exploring the internationally evolving regulatory landscape of prudential corporate governance and the role of bank senior management within these frameworks using a law and economics perspective. Two model jurisdictions, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, are identified as pioneers with their emerging approaches to tackle the persisting challenges. Against this backdrop, the study turns to Switzerland. It fills the gap of a comprehensive supervisory law analysis of bank senior management. For this purpose, the fragmented provisions are distilled from their institutional embedding and structured along the supervisory law life cycle of authorisation, ongoing supervision and enforcement. Along each phase, the respective novel approaches from the model jurisdictions are presented. Through these analyses, the dissertation identifies gaps and inefficiencies in the Swiss supervisory law framework. These findings are synthesised in order to gain a holistic view of the current setup. Concluding, future pathways for Switzerland are presented, also inspired by international developments, to propose a more structured, robust and efficient framework for the regulatory oversight of the senior management of Swiss banks.

Singapore entered the COVID-19 pandemic with sizable policy space and robust economic policy frameworks, yet facing longer-term challenges. The economy has been severely impacted by the pandemic, but a bold, comprehensive, and coordinated policy package has helped cushion the economic fallout. Following a record contraction in the first half of 2020, activity has rebounded, and growth is projected to strengthen to 6 percent in 2021, underpinned by a recovery in domestic demand and a positive contribution from net exports. The uncertainty surrounding the outlook is larger than usual.

South Africa’s subpar economic performance over the last decade has weakened its macroeconomic fundamentals and social indicators. In response to formidable COVID-19-related challenges, government expenditure surged, and, amid declining revenue, the budget deficit widened significantly. The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and the Prudential Authority (PA) preserved adequate liquidity conditions and financial-sector stability. The cyclical recovery from the deep contraction has been faster than expected but its strength is unlikely to be sustained. Benign global market conditions have supported asset performance, although term premia are elevated due to fiscal risks. Bank soundness indicators remain solid, but a deepening bank-sovereign nexus raises some concerns.

The UK’s rapid vaccination campaign enabled it to start to reopen the economy in the Spring of 2021. With highly accommodative policies, the recovery has been faster than expected. However, capacity constraints and rising price pressures have emerged while new Covid-19 variants have raised new uncertainties. The government has allowed all initial pandemic support programs to sunset but has loosened near-term fiscal policy while specifying a back-loaded medium-term consolidation plan. With continued above-target inflation readings, the BoE made a first move to raise the policy rate in December. Macroprudential policies are returning to more standard risk settings. The near-term growth outlook remains strong, but so too are price pressures, while the financial cycle remains ahead of the economic cycle. The pandemic and Brexit have magnified structural challenges. Real GDP would remain below its pre-pandemic trend by about 2–21⁄4 percent in the medium term. Risks are considerable in the period ahead, centering on new Covid-19 waves and spillovers from tensions in Eastern Europe.