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Autowerk: How quickly will the German economy recover after the shutdown?
Photo: Florian Gaertner / photothek / imago images
Does the end of a corona lockdown automatically mean that the economy will quickly improve?
In its current economic forecast, the EU Commission is at least assuming a rapid economic recovery from April, although countries such as Germany and France are currently in shutdowns or lockdowns.
Recovery will begin in spring and gain momentum in summer, it said.
Economists, on the other hand, are more critical of economic regeneration after the end of a lockdown - at least as long as the coronavirus is not under control.
Comparative studies in Scandinavia and the USA show that economies in countries and regions without strict lockdowns crashed in the first phase of the epidemic as well as in states with strict restrictions.
"Since the virus creates uncertainty, many companies do not invest," says Clemens Fuest, President of the Munich Ifo Institute.
"When a dangerous virus is rampant, most people do not go to the cinema, restaurant or concert, regardless of whether they are allowed to or not." In Germany, the shutdown has been extended until March 7th, and extensive easing is only possible from an incidence value of 35 in sight.
In Europe, Sweden is the best-known example of a country that initially wanted to cope with the pandemic without strict restrictions.
Nevertheless, according to data from the EU statistical authority, Swedish economic output collapsed by eight percent in the second quarter of 2020, while in neighboring Denmark it was minus 7.1 percent with lockdown.
However, the fact that the international supply chains in the industry were severely disrupted at times also played a role.
"Without a lockdown, the economic slump will come a little later"
Ifo scientists carried out a study on the Swedish labor market, which was also hit hard.
"Without a lockdown, the economic slump comes a little later and is not quite as deep," says Fuest.
"But you pay for that with later higher numbers of infections and correspondingly higher health and economic damage, which are not counted."
In the US, economists Austan Goolsbee and Chad Syverson examined the economic impact on retail trade in the early stages of the pandemic in several US counties with and without lockdowns.
Result: »While the total customer traffic decreased by 60 percent, the legal restrictions explain only seven percent of this decrease.
Individual decisions (the buyers) were much more important and seem to be related to the fear of infection, «write the two scientists.
An open question, however, is whether people would behave in a later phase of the pandemic as they did in the first.
A crucial factor in the pace of economic recovery will be the speed of the vaccination campaign.
Many scientists, entrepreneurs and politicians as well as the EU Commission agree on this.
"A functioning vaccination program would accelerate the economic recovery," says Claus Michelsen, head of the economic policy department at DIW in Berlin.
Demand for quick vaccinations
The “No Covid” initiative of 14 scientists from various disciplines from medicine to economics warned the government in its new paper on Wednesday to take money into hand for faster vaccinations - no matter how expensive: “Because of the high costs of the pandemic and the tough measures necessary to contain them are investments that offer the prospect of accelerating vaccinations, virtually to any extent purely economically advantageous. «Ifo President Fuest was involved in the appeal.
Because the vaccination campaign in the EU is still very slow.
According to the analysis of the “Our World in Data” portal, there had already been 20 vaccinations per 100 inhabitants in Great Britain on February 9, compared to four in the EU - so the British were five times faster than the continental Europeans at vaccinations.
"Latecomers in the vaccination campaign will remain trapped in crisis mode and face considerable costs - economically and politically," warned the economists of the insurance company Allianz in a recently published assessment.
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ptz / dpa
