The Hamilton Project, Recession Remedies: Lessons Learned from the U.S. Economic Policy Response to COVID-19, Introduction

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Overview chapter of Recession Remedies: Lessons Learned from the U.S. Economic Policy Response to COVID-19, the Hamilton Project volume edited by Wendy Edelberg, Louise Sheiner and David Wessel. It records that more than six million people worldwide had died from COVID-19 as of April 2022, with the death rate among American Indian/Alaska Native people about 2.5 times the white, non-Hispanic rate; that vaccines reached high-risk groups in December 2020; and that the unemployment rate shot up to 14.7 percent in April 2020 before recovery began by May 2020. The editors credit the $1.7 trillion CARES Act, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and more than $5 trillion allocated overall, and introduce chapters on Unemployment Insurance, Economic Impact Payments, business loans and grants, state and local aid, and Federal Reserve policy.

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RECESSION
REMEDIES
Lessons Learned from the
U.S. Economic Policy Response to
COVID-19

Edited by
Wendy Edelberg, Louise Sheiner,
and David Wessel
Recession Remedies
Lessons Learned from the
U.S. Economic Policy Response
to COVID-19

Edited by
Wendy Edelberg, Louise Sheiner, and
David Wessel
Overview
Wendy Edelberg, Louise Sheiner, and David Wessel

Introduction
The worst global pandemic in a century took a devastating human toll, threatening
lives and livelihoods nearly everywhere. More than six million people around
the world had died from COVID-19 as of April 2022, nearly 1 million of them
in the U.S. (Johns Hopkins 2022a). Figure 1 shows the course of the pandemic
through the number of deaths associated with COVID-19 in the U.S.
COVID-19 hit certain racial and ethnic groups particularly hard. As
Figure 2 illustrates, adjusted for age and compared to the rate for white, non-His-
panic people, the death rate associated with COVID-19 among American
Indian/Alaska Native people was about 2.5 times higher, and the rate among
Black people was almost twice as high, while the rate among Hispanic people
was slightly higher.
Vaccine development exceeded expectations in both timing and efficacy
(Boyle 2021; Klein and Tufekci 2022). Vaccines were made available for high-
risk groups in December 2020, just 11 months after the first COVID-19 case was
detected in the United States. As constraints on vaccine eligibility loosened,
average daily vaccinations peaked in April 2021 (New York Times 2022). In
January 2022 fully vaccinated people were 2.4 times less likely to test positive
for COVID-19 and 9 times less likely to die from it (Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention [CDC] 2022b). As of early April 2022, about three-quarters
of Americans had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, two-
thirds had received two doses, and nearly half had received a booster (New
York Times 2022).

COVID-19 and the Economy
The pandemic posed an extraordinary threat to the economy. President Trump
declared a nationwide public health emergency in March 2020. Around that
time, many states and localities began to order lockdowns—closing schools,
shutting bars and restaurants, and suspending public gatherings. Many people
dramatically reduced their face-to-face interactions, and businesses closed or
told employees to work from home.

v
vi | Recession Remedies

FIGURE 1

Weekly Deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S.
30

Deaths (thousands)
15

0
Feb. Apr. Jun. Aug. Oct. Dec. Feb. Apr. Jun. Aug. Oct. Dec. Mar.
2020 2021 2022

Source: Johns Hopkins 2022b.
Note: Weekly deaths are plotted through the week ending March
20, 2022.

In the U.S., the COVID-19 downturn was sharp. In April 2020 the unem-
ployment rate shot up to 14.7 percent, and there were steep declines in labor
force participation and the employment-to-population ratio (Bureau of Labor
Statistics [BLS] 2022). In May 2020, about one-third of all those employed were
teleworking, and a quarter of those in the labor force were unable to work
because an employer had closed or lost business due to the pandemic.
The ensuing economic recovery was faster and stronger than nearly any
forecaster anticipated. For example, although expectations were generally for
the unemployment rate to continue rising and output to continue falling, the
economy began to recover by May 2020. In part that is because of the swift,
aggressive, sustained, and creative response of U.S. fiscal and monetary policy.
As described in more detail in subsequent chapters, Congress responded
forcefully to the pandemic and economic downturn—notably by passing the
$1.7 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in
March 2020, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March 2021, and several
other smaller pieces of legislation. In all, Congress allocated more than $5
trillion to the fiscal response—substantially more than it allocated during the
Great Recession of 2008–9 (for details, see Table 1 in Chapter 1).
Overview | vii

FIGURE 2

Relative Risk for COVID-19 Death by Race/
Ethnicity, Compared to White, Non-Hispanic
Persons
4

Relative risk

0
American Indian/ Black, Hispanic or Asian,
Alaskan Native, Non-Hispanic Latino Non-Hispanic
Non-Hispanic

Source: Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 2022a.
Note: Estimates are age-adjusted.

Households received substantial support through three rounds of Economic
Impact Payments (EIPs) totaling $3,200 per eligible adult and $2,500 per eligible
child, expanded Unemployment Insurance (UI), eviction moratoriums, and
forbearance on mortgages and student loans. Businesses received more than
$1 trillion in subsidies and forgivable loans, and state and local governments
received almost $1 trillion dollars in grants. The Federal Reserve cut its key
short-term interest rate to zero in March 2020 and held it there for two years,
bought about $5 trillion of Treasury and mortgage-based securities, and, with
the encouragement of Congress, expanded its emergency lending beyond
financial institutions to businesses and state and local governments.
viii | Recession Remedies

Questions That Will Be Asked When the Next
Recession Arrives
When the next recession arrives, it most likely won’t be triggered by a pan-
demic. So when policymakers ask how best to respond to that recession, they
will want to know: What did we learn from the economic policy responses to
COVID-19? What should we consider repeating, perhaps with modifications?
What should not be repeated?
The Hamilton Project and the Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary
Policy at the Brookings Institution gathered scholars with deep expertise to
help answer these questions to the fullest extent possible with the available
evidence. We know that the evidence is still incomplete, and scholars will be
debating these questions for years to come. But we also know that the next
recession may arrive before the answers are fully resolved. Indeed, assessing
what we still don’t know is as important as assessing what we do know. We
asked the scholars to describe specific economic policy responses to the pan-
demic, summarize the available evidence about the outcomes of those policies,
and analyze the lessons learned for future recessions. We asked them to try,
as much as possible, to analyze the extent to which outcomes were pandemic
specific and hence likely not applicable to the next recession. This project does
not evaluate the public health response to the pandemic, as important as that
was: we focus exclusively on the economic policy response.
In Chapter 1, Wendy Edelberg, Jason Furman, and Timothy F. Geithner
trace the macroeconomic impact of the breadth of the economic policy
responses that produced a recovery that was both stronger than generally
anticipated and stronger than those of other advanced economies but has also
been accompanied by an unwelcome increase in inflation.
This volume covers the expansion of UI (Chapter 2), the provision of EIPs
(Chapter 3), loans and grants to businesses (Chapter 4), assistance to renters and
mortgage holders (Chapter 5), and aid to state and local governments (Chap-
ter 6). Subsequent chapters examine the efforts aimed specifically at children
(Chapter 7); the reasons, including but not limited to Federal Reserve policy,
that the U.S. Treasury was able to borrow trillions of dollars without pushing
up interest rates (Chapter 8), and the use of nontraditional data to monitor the
economy and guide policy (Chapter 9).

Overarching Lessons for the Next Recession
The authors of each chapter draw specific lessons learned from the economic
policy responses to the pandemic. Looking across the variety of ways the gov-
ernment addressed the economic challenges posed by the pandemic, we (the
three editors) draw a few overarching conclusions.
Overview | ix

1. A strong, broad, and inclusive social insurance system provides effec-
tive relief to households as well as macroeconomic stimulus.
Beneficiaries, like those who lose wages and receive UI benefits, tend to
spend promptly much of what they receive. Sufficiently generous social insur-
ance benefits can reduce the need for other sorts of assistance including aid
to businesses, homeowners, renters, and even state and local governments.
2. The sizable fiscal and monetary policy response helped stabilize the
economy.
The U.S. has enjoyed a stronger economic recovery than other advanced
economies: remarkably few businesses failed, few people lost their homes or
were evicted, and state and local government budgets are still in good shape.
Despite a surge in federal borrowing, long-term interest rates remain low, in
part because of accommodative monetary policy. However, the combined fiscal
and monetary policy response, particularly in the spring of 2021, was a factor
behind the surge in inflation. Of course, inflation also was boosted by other
factors such as disruptions to global and domestic supply chains and, more
recently, by the spike in energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It is too soon to know how history will judge the size of the fiscal and mone-
tary policy response. If the uncomfortably high inflation rate is brought down
over the next couple of years without too much pain, then the responses to
the pandemic will likely be viewed as a significant economic policy success.
3. Generous Unemployment Insurance may have smaller disincentive
effects than previously thought.
During periods when demand for labor is low, even significantly enhanced
UI appears to only modestly discourage recipients from returning to work. This
suggests that boosting UI benefits would likely be worthwhile, particularly
during recessions and probably in regular periods. In addition, the pandemic
showed it is feasible to extend UI to many who previously have been ineligible
and that the benefits of doing so seem greater than the costs.
4. Because standing up new programs quickly and targeting them is
difficult, preparation is key.
Federal and state governments should improve their administrative capacity
now—including modernizing computer systems, improving communications
across agencies and levels of government, and investing in data systems—to be
better prepared to respond quickly to changing economic conditions. In addition,
if it is deemed desirable to make some aspects of the novel pandemic-era policies
permanent features of the response to recessions—such as the extension of
UI to the self-employed—such policies should be designed and legislated now
rather than waiting until the next recession.
x | Recession Remedies

5. Sufficiently reliable, representative, and timely data on too many
aspects of the economy are lacking.
Slow-to-materialize and incomplete economic indicators made it difficult to
assess needs during the pandemic and the lack of such data continues to make it
difficult to fully evaluate the economic consequences of COVID-19. There are no
comprehensive and timely data on renters, nor are there reliable, timely data on
state and local expenditures. One argument for distributing EIPs so widely was
to be sure to reach people who were hurt by the pandemic and weren’t reached by
targeted programs. However, it is almost impossible to know what fraction of EIP
recipients had significant financial needs that were unmet by targeted programs
or how many people, despite EIPs, nonetheless fell through the cracks. Merging
administrative data with survey data and increasing the size of household and
business surveys would help in real time as well as after-the-fact evaluations.
Privately gathered data did help guide policy during the pandemic, but those
data can be hard to interpret without consistent historical comparisons.
6. Although Congress reacted quickly to provide generous relief in the
spring of 2020, such prompt action may not occur in the future.
Without such prompt, wide-reaching action to support the household
sector, support for other sectors would be more critical than it was during the
last two years (such as support for the business sector, state and local govern-
ments, and the housing market). More broadly, Congress should not assume
that the swift recovery after March 2020 is a template for future recoveries.
The pandemic was—we hope—a very unusual episode. Although we didn’t
know it initially, the pandemic was, economically, much more like a natural
disaster—a devastating but brief disruption to economic activity followed by
a rebound—than like the Great Recession and its protracted recovery. The
strength of the economy in 2021 and the resilience of the labor market and
the business sector reflect not only substantial fiscal and monetary stimulus
but also the remarkably rapid development of and administration of vaccines
that allowed businesses, workers, and consumers to begin to resume normal
activities. In addition, the strength of the stock market and of house prices
contributed to the vigor of the recovery; rising house prices and home equity
were one reason that programs to help mortgage holders worked as well as they
did and mostly seemed to support households who needed the help. However,
rising wealth isn’t a feature of every recession and recovery.
7. Next time, support for the business sector should be better targeted.
In the next recession we would not repeat the broad Paycheck Protection
Program, the (largely forgivable) loans to businesses that were intended to
prevent layoffs. Much of that money went to businesses that didn’t need it and
wouldn’t have laid off employees in its absence. As a result, it largely resulted in a
transfer to the business sector that did little to boost the economy. Nonetheless,
in the future a more targeted program in a recession could reduce the number
of bankruptcies of otherwise viable businesses, as described in Chapter 4.
Overview | xi

8. Next time, support for households should better reflect the state of the
economy and the needs of households.
Congress allowed programs to lapse prematurely in the summer and fall
of 2020 and probably provided too much stimulus in the winter and spring of
2021. For example, the value of UI benefits swung wildly, with little connection
to the state of the labor market. Most households received a sizable Economic
Impact Payment in the spring of 2021 when perhaps more targeted and per-
sistent support was warranted. Congress, therefore, should develop policies
that respond automatically as economic conditions warrant, particularly when
economic outcomes are so uncertain; for detailed proposals on such policies,
please see The Hamilton Project and Washington Center for Equitable Growth
volume Recession Ready (2019). Also, relative to what was done in the CARES
Act in March 2020, we would make sure that increases in Supplemental Nutri-
tion Assistance Program benefits be targeted at the poorest households and
we would allow state and local governments more flexibility in using federal
aid. Subsequent legislation was improved to these ends.

Assessing the Specific Economic Policy
Responses
Unemployment Insurance
In Chapter 2, Peter Ganong, Fiona Greig, Pascal Noel, Daniel Sullivan, and
Joseph Vavra review the substantial expansion of UI—supplementing state-
provided benefits, expanding eligibility to those not traditionally eligible, and
extending the duration of benefits at a cost to the federal government of roughly
$700 billion. They draw five conclusions. First, UI expansions were highly
progressive in that they offset income losses and delivered the most benefit to
lower-income workers. Second, UI benefits provided a powerful stimulus to
the macroeconomy by boosting consumption. Third, work disincentive effects
from UI benefits were small during the pandemic, especially when compared
to history. Fourth, Congress increased access to benefits for workers on the
margins of the labor market, and there is no clear evidence of greater work
disincentive effects for them than for other workers. Fifth, the rapidly expanded
UI programs faced a range of administrative challenges in meeting the surge
in UI demand, including delays, unnecessary red tape, and overpayments, all
of which were costly in terms of consumer welfare and government expense.

Economic Impact Payments
In Chapter 3, Michael Gelman and Mel Stephens examine the more than $800
billion in cash that was distributed to all but the highest-income households
in the three rounds of EIPs. Although there were delays in getting the money
to some vulnerable, low-income households, electronic disbursement allowed
xii | Recession Remedies

the Treasury to make payments quickly—about two weeks after the initial
legislation was signed and even more quickly in the subsequent rounds. The
available evidence suggests that the payments led to a rapid increase in spending;
consumers spent about the same or a smaller fraction of these payments than
they did in similar payments in past downturns. The payments were not, of
course, well targeted. Some households that weren’t adversely affected by the
pandemic received the money, but other recipients were adversely affected but
weren’t eligible for or didn’t promptly receive more targeted benefits (such as
UI or rental assistance) and were greatly aided by the EIPs.

Support for Business
In Chapter 4, Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, Ben Iverson, and Adi Sunderam survey
the new federal subsidies and loans provided to businesses in the first year of the
pandemic —including the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the Economic
Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, and aid targeted at specific industries
such as airlines and restaurants—and also examine the additional lending
and corporate bond purchases by the Federal Reserve. They observe that busi-
nesses overall fared much better during the pandemic recession and recovery
than had been expected at the outset. In sharp contrast to past recessions, for
instance, business bankruptcies fell during the pandemic. Many large firms
continued to have access to private credit markets. They conclude that policies
to support small businesses could have achieved their objective at a much
lower cost to the federal government had the programs been more targeted.
They find no credible evidence that the largest PPP loans had any substantial
positive effect on employment. Loans through the EIDL program, which unlike
the PPP loans were not forgivable, were better targeted. The Federal Reserve’s
support for bank lending to business had little direct impact, in large part
because banks were in much better shape than they were during the Great
Recession. However, the Fed’s interventions in the corporate bond market had
an important stabilizing effect in the early months of the pandemic in 2020.
The authors caution policymakers against blindly deploying the 2020 tool kit,
judging that the resiliency of the business sector reflects the unusual nature
of the lockdown and reopening, and the substantial fiscal aid to households,
more than it does the aid targeted directly at businesses. They also question
the wisdom of providing federal aid to some large firms, such as airlines, that
have a history of successful bankruptcy resolution.

Housing
Chapter 5 is divided in two. In the first part, Kristopher Gerardi, Lauren
Lambie-Hanson, and Paul Willen review the aid offered to the roughly 50
million homeowners with mortgages included in a forbearance program (on top
of EIPs and UI) and the Federal Reserve’s actions that pushed down mortgage
rates, allowing many mortgage holders to reduce their monthly payments by
Overview | xiii

refinancing (Census Bureau n.d.). They deem these policies to be quite effective
in relieving financial distress and allowing homeowners to stay in their homes,
especially in contrast with the policies pursued during the Great Recession.
They emphasize that these policies in part worked because of rising housing
prices and home equity, before and during the pandemic, and note that such
conditions might not hold in future downturns. They observe that minority
mortgage borrowers were much more likely to miss mortgage payments, so
forbearance was particularly important to them. Black and Hispanic borrowers,
however, were less likely to refinance than white or Asian borrowers.
In the second part, Laurie Goodman and Susan Wachter evaluate aid
offered (again on top of EIPs and UI) to the 44 million renting households.
These include federal, state, and local eviction moratoriums and the two rounds
of Emergency Rental Assistance (up to $25 billion allocated by Congress in
December 2020 and up to $21.55 billion more allocated in March 2021). How-
ever, the distribution of financial assistance was distressingly slow. Data on
renters are unfortunately skimpy, a major impediment to precisely measuring
the effects of these policies. General income replacement might have sufficed
if policymakers were concerned only with the negative effect of the recession
on renters’ finances, but the eviction moratoriums and Emergency Rental
Assistance were particularly important to those struggling to make their rental
payments before the recession. Eviction moratoriums, while particularly jus-
tified in a pandemic, impose hardships on landlords.

Aid to State and Local Governments
In Chapter 6, Louise Sheiner looks at the nearly $1 trillion that the federal
government provided to state and local governments. The federal aid was
more than sufficient to offset the declines in state and local revenues, which
were not nearly as severe as initially feared, in part because the relationship
between economic conditions and state and local revenues during the pandemic
differed significantly from historical experience. Nevertheless, state and local
government employment declined sharply, and the decline has been quite
persistent: employment at state and local governments in February 2022 was
3 percent below the pre-pandemic level, accounting for roughly one-quarter
the shortfall in total employment in the U.S. from its pre-pandemic trend.
She concludes that much of the decline in employment reflected the unique
nature of the pandemic rather than tight budgetary conditions. However, she
also argues that had state and local policymakers known about the full extent
of forthcoming aid, had the aid been more flexible, and had it been provided
directly to more local governments, the layoffs likely would have been somewhat
smaller. Finally, she cautions against using the unique pandemic experience as
a reason to discard the lesson of the Great Recession that aid to state and local
governments is critical to ensure a strong economic recovery.
xiv | Recession Remedies

Children
In Chapter 7, Anna Aizer and Claudia Persico examine the impact of the pan-
demic and related policy responses on children. In 2020 the combined effect of
several government programs—EIPs, UI, and the expansion of the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program—reduced the percentage of children living in
poverty (measured by the Supplemental Poverty Measure) from 12.6 percent in
2019 to 9.7 percent. Child poverty likely fell again in 2021 because of continued
support for households and the expansion of the Child Tax Credit. The authors
note that the pandemic hit child-care providers particularly hard; child-care
employment fell much more sharply than in typical recessions, and many child-
care centers closed despite billions in federal aid and forgivable loans. Much of
that aid came too late to avoid closures, a mistake that should not be repeated.
Federal efforts to prevent a decline in health insurance coverage, including
through Medicaid and Affordable Care Act exchanges, were largely successful.
The expansion of SNAP benefits reduced food insecurity. The provision of debit
cards to purchase groceries for students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch
(including the undocumented) while schools were closed was slow to roll out but
ultimately very successful. While some elements of the pandemic were unique,
such as the suspension of in-person schooling, available evidence underscores
the importance of cash and near-cash transfers in reducing poverty as well as
housing and food insecurity among families with children.

Interest Rates and Monetary Policy
In Chapter 8, Robin Brooks and Jonathan Pingle examine the role of monetary
policy in keeping interest rates low in the wake of a surge in federal borrowing
to assess whether a similar increase in borrowing could be repeated in future
recessions. They note that despite the huge increase in federal borrowing, some
traditional buyers of U.S. Treasury debt—including foreigners and domestic
investors—did not increase their holdings on net outside of accounts that had a
regulatory incentive to hold Treasurys. It’s too soon to know if the pre-pandemic
trend toward lower global interest rates will persist or be reversed. During the
pandemic, the upward pressure on interest rates from substantial U.S. borrow-
ing was offset by factors other than monetary policy that keep rates from rising.
Policymakers should not assume that will always be the case. They conclude
that the Federal Reserve’s purchases of more than $3.3 trillion in U.S. Treasury
debt helped dampen rates and estimate that the yield on 10-year Treasury notes
would have been 0.70 percentage points higher if not for the Fed’s purchases.
Whether the Fed can and will repeat this in future downturns depends, in
large part, on whether it can tame the current surge of inflation and on the
inflationary environment when the next recession arrives.
Overview | xv

Nontraditional Data
In Chapter 9, Tomaz Cajner, Laura Feiveson, Christopher Kurz, and Stacey Tevlin
examine the use and value of nontraditional data sources, such as private payroll
service providers and restaurant reservation services. They identify three main
benefits of such data. First, these data are often available much earlier than the
data provided from government surveys, an important feature at times like March
2020, when the economy was changing direction abruptly. Second, these data are
often more granular—covering particular geographies or demographic groups,
for instance—and that can allow for faster evaluations of the cost of shocks or
the benefits of policies, which, in turn, can help fine-tune policies. And, third,
nontraditional sources can provide information unique to a particular crisis.
But the cost to the government of nontraditional, privately gathered data can
be substantial. Historical time series are not always available, which can make
interpreting the data challenging. Privately gathered data are not always represen-
tative or gathered with the same methodological rigor as government economic
indicators. Still, the benefits of nontraditional data are greater than the costs.

References
Boushey, Heather, Ryan Nunn, and Jay Shambaugh. 2019. Recession Ready: Fiscal Policies
to Stabilize the American Economy. Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.
Boyle, Patrick. 2021. “COVID-19 Vaccines Were Developed in Record Time. Can
We Make Future Vaccines Even Faster?” Association of American Medical
Colleges, Washington, D.C.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). 2022. “Current Population Survey (Household
Survey).” Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, D.C.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 2022a. “Risk for COVID-19
Infection, Hospitalization, and Death By Race/Ethnicity.” Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA. Accessed March 29, 2022 at https://www.
cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospital-
ization-death-by-race-ethnicity.html.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 2022b. “Rates of COVID-19
Cases and Deaths by Vaccination Status.” Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, Atlanta, GA. Accessed on March 24, 2022 at https://covid.cdc.gov/
covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status.
Johns Hopkins University of Medicine. 2022a. “Coronavirus Resource Center.” Balti-
more, MD. Accessed on March 24, 2022 at https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html.
Johns Hopkins University of Medicine. 2022b. “COVID-19 Data Repository by the
Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity.” Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. Accessed on March 20th, 2022
at https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19.
Klein, Ezra, and Zeynep Tufekci. 2022. “Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Zeynep
Tufekci.” New York Times, January 18, 2022.
U.S. Census Bureau. n.d. “QuickFacts: United States.” Accessed on March 20th,
2022 at https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/US.
The COVID-19 pandemic posed an extraordinary threat to lives
and livelihoods. In the United States, the pandemic triggered a
sharp downturn. Yet, the ensuing economic recovery was faster
and stronger than nearly any forecaster anticipated due in part
to the swift, aggressive, sustained, and creative response of
U.S. fiscal and monetary policy. But when the next recession
arrives, it most likely won’t be triggered by a pandemic.

Recession Remedies examines and evaluates the breadth of
the economic-policy response to COVID-19. Chapters address
Unemployment Insurance, Economic Impact Payments, loans
and grants to businesses, assistance to renters and mortgage
holders, aid to state and local governments, policies that
targeted children, Federal Reserve policy, and the use of non-
traditional data to monitor the economy and guide policy.
These chapters provide evidence and lessons to apply to the
next recession.

Contributors
Anna Aizer • Robin Brooks • Tomaz Cajner
Gabriel Chodorow-Reich • Wendy Edelberg • Laura Feiveson
Jason Furman • Peter Ganong • Tim Geithner • Michael Gelman
Kristopher Gerardi • Fiona Greig • Laurie Goodman • Ben Iverson
Christopher Kurz • Lauren Lambie-Hanson • Pascal Noel
Claudia Persico • Jonathan Pingle • Louise Sheiner
Melvin Stephens, Jr. • Daniel Sullivan • Adi Sunderam
Stacey Tevlin • Joseph Vavra • Susan Wachter
David Wessel • Paul Willen

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