Covid-19 and the economy, part one: Germany / developing world

Daniel Ben-Ami and Sabine Beppler-Spahl will introduce our first look at how the pandemic has affected different parts of the world.

Over the next few weeks, the AoI Economy Forum will look at different parts of the world economy in relation to Covid-19.

In Germany, as in the UK, the economy is predicted to contract sharply as a result of the lockdown. Some big-name companies have been shut down - like airlines Condor and German Wings - and the federal government has introduced a huge bailout plan. But how much of the current crisis relates to the lockdown, and how much to pre-existing problems? Has this crisis become a convenient distraction from the deeper, structural problems of the German economy? And as the economic pain becomes clear, who will bear the brunt?

Developing economies could suffer the greatest effects from the Covid-19 pandemic even though they have been little discussed in the West. They constitute a diverse range of countries, but it is possible to identify some key themes that, to a greater or lesser extent, threaten them. There are the direct effects on already hugely overstretched healthcare systems, the economic consequences of lockdowns, the impact of the slump in demand from the developed economies, and tougher financial conditions such as capital outflows and higher debt servicing costs.

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