The longer-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for the global economy are coming into focus. The pandemic is now recognised as having constituted the largest synchronised fall in global GDP in modern history, although its impact was quickly mitigated by governments which were guided by lessons learned from the global financial crisis in 2009. This time, governments have far more swiftly introduced stimulus programmes to counter recessionary forces. The European Union, for instance, facilitated joint debt issuance and created conditions for a powerful fiscal response to the crisis. […]