Shaping the macro-economy in response to COVID-19: a responsible economic stimulus, a stable financial sector, and a revival in exports

 

COVID-19 has been a tough test for the international cooperation system. While the global community responded with some immediate actions, it was not at the scale required. In year two of the pandemic, international support should move beyond emergency response towards medium- and long- term planning.

Kenya experienced overall macro stability and modest growth of 5.5% for the period 2017 to 2019. The onset of COVID 19 pandemic in March 2020 however subdued the economy owing to swift containment measures that were imposed to limit the spread of the pandemic. As a result, Kenya suffered its first recession in nearly two decades. The government responded fast by instituting a broad range of macroeconomic policy interventions. It launched the 8-Point Economic Stimulus Programme targeted towards building back a better and resilient economy. This policy was chosen to estimate the socio-economic effects of the stimulus. Using available evidence of fiscal multipliers, we came up with three scenarios: (i) untargeted total expansionary fiscal stimulus and (ii) targeted sectoral public spending and (iii) hypothetical reallocation to targeted sectoral with high multiplier effect. Results of the scenario building exercise highlight that fiscal stimulus could contribute to Kenya’s growth over the short-term, but the impact greatly improves if measures are targeted to sectors with higher multiplier effects. In medium to long term, focus on environment and green investment could result to higher socio-economic effects.

This paper takes a comprehensive look at the economic impact of COVID-19 and explores the public policy choices to engineer economic recovery. It also maps the behaviour of key economic variables using indicators including growth, exports, poverty, gender, climate change, public finance, and the trade regime.

Bangladesh, like most of the countries in the world, had to restrict mobility and economic activities to tackle the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Indeed, the pandemic has been exerting pressure on the economy through both global and domestic shocks leading to a detrimental impact on major macroeconomic correlates of the country. The present study urges that Bangladesh will need to pursue a countercyclical fiscal policy stance in the face of deceleration in aggregate demand. The study further maintains that greater fiscal resources should be directed towards those people, households and enterprises having a higher propensity to consume and invest. From this perspective, the study strongly advocates for direct cash transfers, food support, and enhanced public expenditures in health and education rather than a general increase in public expenditures and subsidised credit flow.