What are the traces left by the two years of COVID, 2020-2021?

At the end of 2021, there was a normalisation of production and employment in OECD countries and a favourable financial situation for companies. But that does not mean that COVID has not left its traces in OECD economies. The impacts of this health crisis in 2020-2021 are actually significant : Very high public debt ratios, which will require either restrictive fiscal policies or continued expansionary monetary policies in the future; A huge increase in the money supply, leading to a sharp increase in money balances held by households and companies, and consequently to a rise in asset prices (equities, real estate) through the portfolio rebalancing mechanism, and to persistently low long-term interest rates; The shift in the structure of demand from services to goods (due to work from home, the digitalisation of the economy, the acceleration of the energy transition, e-commerce), which explains the rise in prices of commodities , electronics and transport and the surge in inflation; Changes in employee choices and preferences: in the United States, declining labour supply; throughout the OECD, rejection of arduous, intermittent and atypical-hour jobs. The result has been an increase in wage earners’ bargaining power, particularly in the United States; An effort to finance innovation, digitalise the economy and improve corporate efficiency, which may lead to higher productivity gains and higher potential growth; The acceleration of the energy transition, which will have major effects on economies in the future.