How did pandemic payments affect the US economy?

11/01/22 • 29 min

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The COVID-19 Economic Impact Payments were not the first time the federal government has provided fiscal support to Americans during a crisis, but they did have a different purpose. The goal wasn’t to stimulate the economy but rather to offer “pandemic insurance”—money to pay bills and buy food for people who may have lost income due to the pandemic. In the latest episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Hamilton Project Director Wendy Edelberg and MIT finance professor Jonathan A. Parker discuss Parker’s recent BPEA study on how those payments were spent (or not spent) and the on-going impact on the economy.

Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/3zv6rmi

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Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/3zv6rmi

Previous Episode

Will a strong dollar hurt emerging markets?

A strong U.S. dollar reflects economic and political strength for the United States. But a new study published in the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity illustrates how a strong dollar might not be good for other countries, especially emerging and developing markets. On this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Brookings Senior Fellow Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti interviews the authors of that study, Maurice Obstfeld of UC Berkeley and Haonan Zhou of Princeton University. Obstfeld and Zhou explain what’s driving the stronger dollar, why it might hurt emerging markets, and policies those emerging markets can use to become more resilient to dollar appreciation shocks.

Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/3V8KjqT

Next Episode

How did credit market interventions affect macroeconomies during COVID-19?

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Show notes and transcript: https://bit.ly/41oIDfA