While the COVID-19 pandemic is mostly under control in many advanced economies, some developing countries in Africa and Latin America are registering an increase in the number of cases and may suffer long-lasting consequences from the pandemic. Although there is rapidly growing literature on the economic effect of the pandemic in advanced economies, research on developing and emerging markets is limited. International Development Policy (DevPol) along with the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) published an e-book summarising the early work on developing and emerging markets: “COVID-19 in Developing Economies”. To discuss some of the key issues, DevPol and the CEPR hosted an online panel discussion around some of the chapters in the e-book on July 3rd, 2020. The panel addressed the question of what consequences of the pandemic we can anticipate and what effects of it we can mitigate. The panel focused on the macroeconomic effects of the pandemic, as well as its effects on trade and formality.
Prof Ugo Panizza, Editor-in-Chief of the International Development Policy Journal, introduced and moderated the event. Panelists included Dr Swati Dhingra, Lecturer at the Department of Economics at the London School of Economics; Dr Caroline Freund, Global Director for Trade, Investment, and Competitiveness at the World Bank; and Prof Andrés Velasco Brañes, Dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics.
