Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Aim: The paper makes two important contributions to the fiscal policy literature during the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing the way Eurozone countries responded with fiscal expansion or restriction as a means to manage the pandemic crisis. This research investigates the national governments’ fiscal policies introduced to manage the COVID-19 pandemic within economic, political and institutional contexts, focusing on European countries that are part of the Eurozone. It demonstrates similarities and heterogeneity in three dimensions of fiscal policy responses to COVID-19 (the size of fiscal spending, the type and targets of fiscal policy responses) across 19 Eurozone countries, in the period effective from the pandemic until January 2022. Methods: A Cross-Country Analysis and Statistical Analysis in 19 Eurozone Countries was applied. Results: Eurozone countries with strong economies (Germany, France) implemented fiscal expansion directly to cope with the pandemic while weaker economies (Estonia, Spain) responded late. Additionally, the business sector was supported first, instead of the health sector, by governments. Conclusions: The paper makes two important contributions to the fiscal policy literature during the COVID-19 pandemic. The original contribution of this research is that it is one of the first comparative analysis studies to focus on the European region regarding national fiscal policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Existing studies on COVID-19 policy responses have primarily focused on public health measures.
Article Details
Alberola, E., Arslan, Y., Cheng, G., Moessner, R. (2020). The fiscal response to the COVID-19 crisis in advanced and emerging market economies. Retrieved from https://www.bis.org/publ/bisbull23.htm [accessed: 20.01.2022]. (Crossref)
Alvaro, L. (2020). The fiscal response to COVID-19 in Europe: will it be enough? International Economy Focus, CaixaBank Research. Retrieved from https://www.
caixabankresearch.com/sites/default/files/content/file/2020/09/15/34454/im09_2`6-ei-ue-focus-4-en.pd [accessed: 20.01.2022].
Anastasatou, M., Anyfantaki, S. (2023). COVID-19 Pandemic: Overview of the fiscal policy response and macroeconomic developments in the Euro Area and the United States, Economic Bulletin, Bank of Greece, 57, 47–65. Anderson, J., Papadia, F., Véron, N. (2020). Government – guaranteed bank lending in Europe: beyond the headline numbers. Peterson Institute for International Economics. Retrieved from https://www.piie.com/blogs/ realtime-economic-issues-watch/government-guaranteed-bank-lending-europe-beyond-headline [accessed: 20.06.2022]. (Crossref)
Auerbach, A.J., Gale, W., Lutz, B., Sheiner, L. (2020). Fiscal effects of COVID-19, Brooking Papers on Economic Activity. Fall, 228–278. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Auerbachpaper.pdf [accessed: 20.06.2022]. (Crossref)
Barišić, P., Kovač, T. (2022). The effectiveness of the fiscal policy response to COVID-19 through the lens of short and long run labor market effects of COVID-19 measures, Public Sector Economics, 46(1), 43–81. (Crossref)
Benmelech, E., Tzur-Ilan, N. (2020). The determinants of fiscal and monetary policies during the COVID-19 crisis. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 27461. Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27461/w27461.pdf [accessed: 20.06.2022]. (Crossref)
Brunet, G. (2019). After the war: wartime saving and postwar housing investment, 1946–1950. Retrieved from http://conference.nber.org/conf_papers/f127354.pdf [accessed: 20.06.2022].
Chen, C., Shi, Y., Zhang, P., Ding, C. (2021). A cross-country comparison of fiscal policy responses to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 23(2), 262–273. https://doi.org/10.1080/13876988.2021.1878885 (Crossref)
Cavallo, A.F., Cai, T. (2020). HBS COVID-19 global policy tracker. Retrieved from https://www.hbs.edu/COVID-19-business-impact/Insights/Economic-and-Financial-Impacts/Global-Policy-Tracker [accessed: 20.01.2022].
Cottarelli, C., Gerson, P., Senhadji, A. (2014). Post-Crisis Fiscal Policy. The MIT Press, Cambridge. (Crossref)
Dabla-Norris, E., Dallari, P., Poghosyan, T. (2017). Fiscal spillovers in the Euro Area: letting the data speak. IMF Working Paper, WP/17/241. (Crossref)
Durante, A. (2022). U.S. Fiscal Response to COVID-19 among largest of industrialized countries. TaxFoundation. Retrieved from https://taxfoundation.org/blog/us-COVID19-fiscal-response/ [accessed: 20.01.2022].
Dimitropoulou, D., Theofilakou, A. (2021). Explaining the cross-country differences in the economic fallout during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Economic Bulletin Bank of Grece, 53, 29–48. (Crossref)
Eichengreen, B. (2020). Coronanomics 101, Project Syndicate. Retrieved from https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/limits-macroeconomic-tools-coronavirus-pandemic-by-barry-eichengreen-2020-03 [accessed: 20.01.2022].
Eichengreen, B. (2022). COVID and the outlook for emerging markets. Journal of Policy Modeling, 44(4), 820–826. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpolmod.2022.09.008 (Crossref)
Ferguson, N., Laydon, D., Nedjati-Gilani, G., Imai, N., Ainslie, K., Baguelin, M. et al. (2020). Impact of nonpharmaceutical interventions [NPIs] to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand. https://doi.org/10.25561/77482
Flaxman, S., Mishra, S., Gandy, A., et al., 2020, Estimatingthe effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe. Nature, 584, 257–261. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2405-7 (Crossref)
IMF (2021). Policy responses to COVID-19. Retrieved fromhttps://www.imf.org/en/topics/imf-and-covid19/policyresponses-to-covid-19 [accessed: 20.01.2022].
Kannan, P., Scott, A., Terrones, M. (2009). From recessionto recovery: how soon and how strong? [In:] S. Claessens,
A. Kose, L. Laeven, F. Valencia (eds), Financial crises, causes, consequences, and policy responses. InternationalMonetary Fund . https://doi.org/10.5089/9781475543407.071.ch008
Korinek, A., Stiglitz, J.E. (2022). Macroeconomic Stabilization for a post – pandemic world: revising the fiscal – monetary policy mix and correcting macroeconomic externalities. Hutchings Center Working Paper, 78, Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy, Brookings. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/ macroeconomicstabilization-for-a-post-pandemic- world/ [accessed: 20.01.2022].
Krugman, P. (2020) The case for permanent stimulus, in mitigating the COVID economic crisis: act fast and do whatever it takes. CEPR Press, London.
Nickel, C., Tudyka, A. (2013). Fiscal stimulus in times of high debt: reconsidering multipliers and twin deficits. ECB Working Paper, 1513. International Monetary Fund Tracker of Policy Responses to COVID-19 (2020). Retrieved from https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/imf-and-COVID19/Policy-Responses-to-COVID-19 [accessed: 20.01.2022]. (Crossref)
OECD (2020). Tax and fiscal policy in response to the Coronavirus crisis: Strengthening confidence and resilience. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/taxand-
fiscal-policy-in-response-to-thecoronavirus-crisisstrengthening-confidence-and-resilience.htm [accessed: 20.01.2022].
Romer, C.D. (2021). The fiscal policy response to the pandemic. Brooking Papers on Economic Activity. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/15872-BPEA-SP21_WEB_Romer.pdf [accessed: 20.01.2022]. (Crossref)
Wang, T., Gao, K., Wen, C., Xiao, Y., Bingzheng, Y. (2022). Assessing the nexus between fiscal policy, COVID- 19, and economic growth. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 29, 65289–65303. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11356-022-20358-z (Crossref)
Downloads
- Agnieszka Kozera, Aldona Standar, ENERGY INDEPENDENT CITIES? INVESTMENT ACTIVITY OF CITIES IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EU CO-FINANCED PROJECTS IN RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES AND ITS CONDITIONS IN POLAND , Acta Scientiarum Polonorum. Oeconomia: Vol. 23 No. 2 (2024)
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.