Who bears the costs of negative shocks: Households (employees), governments or companies?
OECD countries have just suffered two successive negative shocks: The fall in production due to the health measures linked to the COVID pandemic, in 2020; The rise in prices of commodities, electronics and transport in the post-COVID economic recovery. We seek to determine who bore the brunt of these shocks: wage earners/households, governments or companies? This analysis is necessary to assess the effects of these shocks, for example on inflation (which is a reaction by companies to a fall in their earnings), equity markets (protected from shocks if companies are protected ), demand (weakened if household purchasing power declines), etc. We see that: The 2020 shock (decline in production) was mainly borne by governments; The 2021 shock (commodity prices) was completely borne by households.