Worldwide: Economic Stimulus Responses to COVID-19

(8 April 2020)  Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey, has published data illuminating the magnitude of national governments' economic stimulus responses to COVID-19 and facilitating cross country comparisons scaling each country's response as a share of its GDP. 

• Three countries—Bahrain, Malta, and Austria—have announced stimulus packages in excess of 25% of national GDP, even though combined they have less than 14,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases, or about the same number of cases as in Brazil alone.
• The data also reveals an interesting departure in how central banks and the like are approaching the crisis, with roughly a dozen countries cutting their policy rates by at least 50%.
• Of note, the Untied States, the United Kingdom, and Norway chose dramatic rate cuts of 100, 86.7, and 83 percent, respectively; Norway has relatively few cases (approx. 6,100) compared to the United States (approx. 430,000) and the United Kingdom (approx. 62,000).