The COVID crisis: An interruption rather than a recession

After a “normal” recession, it takes a long time for production, employment and corporate earnings to recover; and for corporate bankruptcies and unemployment to fall. But in the aftermath of the COVID crisis, this return to normal has happened extremely quickly. We therefore have the impression that the COVID crisis was more a short interruption of the economies’ growth trajectory (we look at the United States and the euro zone) than a real recession, which would have left much more lasting traces. It remains to be seen whether the war in Ukraine will have the same status.