{"id":6881,"date":"2020-06-09T22:17:09","date_gmt":"2020-06-09T21:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qpol.qub.ac.uk\/?p=6881"},"modified":"2020-06-09T22:17:09","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T21:17:09","slug":"what-can-we-learn-from-historical-recessions-and-depressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/what-can-we-learn-from-historical-recessions-and-depressions\/","title":{"rendered":"What can we learn from historical recessions and depressions?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px\">The UK economy is in a recession because of Covid-19. Two characteristics make this recession unique. First, nearly every economy across the globe is experiencing it simultaneously. Second, the Covid-19 recession is self-induced \u2013 economies have in effect been put into a temporary coma to deal with the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p>Despite today\u2019s unique characteristics, past recessions can teach us something about what to expect in terms of how long it takes to exit from a recession and what, if any, policies might accelerate that exit. Using newly created databases of long-run macroeconomic statistics, recent economic research has investigated these issues.<\/p>\n<h3>What does evidence from economic research tell us?<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Across advanced economies over the past 150 years, the average length of a recession was one and a half years. The average fall in real GDP per capita was 2.5% per annum.<\/li>\n<li>Recessions that are preceded by or associated with financial crises and credit booms are much more damaging to the economy than recessions that are not.<\/li>\n<li>Monetary and fiscal stimulus have an important role to play in exit strategies, but care needs to be taken that the stimulus is not withdrawn too early.<\/li>\n<li>The ability of governments to address a recession is limited if a country enters a recession with high levels of public debt. In addition, large public debt that emerges during recessions has acted as a drag on long-run economic growth.<\/li>\n<li>Productivity, which had slowed dramatically in the UK and elsewhere in the decade prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, is the key to economic growth in the short and long run.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To continue reading, <a href=\"https:\/\/coronavirusandtheeconomy.com\/question\/what-can-we-learn-historical-recessions-and-depressions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">please click here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Article originally appeared on the <a href=\"https:\/\/coronavirusandtheeconomy.com\/question\/what-can-we-learn-historical-recessions-and-depressions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Economics Observatory Coronavirus and the Economy website.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/157270154@N05\/27175445117\/in\/photolist-Hppg4c-NrDaPK-57sTQw-2iWWLbp-2iBNVGd-2iCHcNH-2iCgJrZ-2j65BiA-2iBVtnb-2iCf5t6-2j4UE5R-2j4myK4-2j42gqu-2j6iEtt-2j6evLc-2j47WQq-2j478co-2iBUGmQ-2iCGMMs-2iCgFSa-2j471xH-2iCfBQS-2iBQsy2-2j4sr3j-2iBLkpX-2j45urJ-2j4Ynau-2j478uT-2j3q8Pc-VjKbx1-2iCdnxG-2j4jiLa-2j44Vsv-51Cxnj-2iBRMhs-CWx5yT-2iBTkNM-9fzVrn-2j4kQik-2iC6o6L-2iCno4t-2j4i6oJ-2iBQm1M-2j65Bxd-2j4jdtM-2j4okgc-2iCH9QU-2j6icWm-2iCEB4D-2K6HQ1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">featured&nbsp;image<\/a><\/em>&nbsp;<em>has been used courtesy of a&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/2.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Creative Commons license.&nbsp;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While the Covid-19 recession has some unique characteristics, research on past experiences of economic downturns offers valuable lessons on how long recovery takes and what policies might accelerate that process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2481,"featured_media":6887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[918,58],"class_list":["post-6881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-wellbeing","tag-covid-19","tag-economy"],"mb":[],"acf":{"authors":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":9774,"key":"field_66d0cbf58f930","label":"Authors","name":"authors","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"relationship","value":null,"menu_order":1,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"post_type":["authors"],"post_status":["publish"],"taxonomy":"","filters":["search"],"return_format":"id","min":0,"max":10,"allow_in_bindings":0,"elements":["featured_image"],"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"authors","_valid":1}},"description":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":9776,"key":"field_66d2183027749","label":"Description","name":"description","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"wysiwyg","value":null,"menu_order":3,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"default_value":"","allow_in_bindings":0,"tabs":"all","toolbar":"basic","media_upload":0,"delay":1,"_name":"description","_valid":1}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/76\/2020\/06\/economy.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"mfb_rest_fields":["title","jetpack_featured_media_url","jetpack_sharing_enabled","amp_enabled"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2481"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}