What happens if COVID generates a permanent negative supply shock?
It is now conceivable that the COVID pandemic will persist and that countries will have to learn to live with it. This means that there will be a permanent negative supply shock: the health measures in companies will remain in place, reduce productivity and increase costs; a portion of the labour force will have to remain in permanent isolation and will not be able to go to work. What are the consequences of a permanent negative supply shock? The level of potential GDP is reduced ; If the income loss is borne by wage earners in the form of a further skewing of income distribution against wage earners under the effect of a slowdown in nominal wages, then demand will also be reduced and, despite the negative supply shock, there will not be inflation; altogether, real wages will fall and earnings will be maintained; If this is not the case, and if there is no slowdown in nominal wages to rebalance supply and demand, then inflation will be inevitable; If wages are tightly indexed to prices, household demand will be maintained and corporate earnings and investment will fall; If wages are weakly indexed to prices, which is the case today, then household demand will fall and corporate earnings will be maintained.