The decline in activity due to COVID is much greater in Europe than in other regions: Causes and consequences

When comparing growth rates in 2020 in the euro zone and the United Kingdom on the one hand, and in Asia, other emerging countries and the United States on the other hand, we see a far greater loss of production in Europe than in the other regions. This is due to less effective pandemic management in Europe than in Asia and a higher price of life used by public decision-makers in Europe than in the United States or in emerging countries other than Asia. While , for the well-known reasons (loss of productive capital, deterioration in companies' balance sheets, loss of human capital) a decline in production in the short term leads to a decline in potential growth, Europe risks having a permanently weakened economy compared with other regions.