On the Macroeconomic and Social Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic in Latin America and the Developing World

摘要

The COVID-19 pandemic will undoubtedly be a defining event in years to come both in economic, social and political terms. While the immediate impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the related economic slump was assessed to be of a similar magnitude to that of the Great Recession of 2007-2008 by mid-March 2020, the most recent figures of key variables such as the initial claims on unemployment insurance in the United States or the foreign new orders in Germany indicate that the current drop in economic activity will be rather comparable to the Great Depression of the 1930s.The social costs triggered by the pandemic and the required social distancing measures including the enforced lock-downs in many countries will be enormous.A surge in do­mestic violence since the start of the coronavirus lockdowns has already been recorded in many countries(WHO,2020),and other side effects concerning the mental health of the population including a sharp increase in suicide rates can be expected,as research on past economic recessions indi­cates(Schwandt and von Wachter,2020).At the same time,the roll-back of some civil rights under the premise of halting the spread of the virus may lead to increased authoritarian­ism in countries where democratic institutions are already weak,such as Hungary,the Philippines and Brazil.