How should policy be designed at high debt levels, when fiscal authorities have little room to adjust taxes? Assigning the monetary authority a role in achieving debt sustainability makes it less effective in stabilizing inflation and output.
We study the labour market and welfare effects of expanding unemployment insurance benefits and introducing payroll subsidies during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that both policies are complementary and are beneficial to different types of workers. Payroll subsidies preserve the employment of workers in highly productive jobs, while unemployment insurance replaces lost income for workers who experience inevitable job loss.
Should unemployment benefits be more generous during economic downturns? The optimal amount and duration of benefit payments ultimately depend on the demographic and wealth characteristics of benefit recipients.
Can daycare replace parents’ time spent with children? We explore this by using data on how parents spend time and money on children and how this spending is related to their child’s development.
Deputy Governor Lawrence Schembri explains how household spending has changed because of COVID-19 and discusses why the Bank expects the recovery to have two phases.
Deputy Governor Lawrence Schembri explains how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected household spending and economic activity, and discusses what the recovery is expected to look like.
COVID-19 presents challenges for indebted households. We assess these by drawing parallels between pandemics and natural disasters. Taking into account the financial health of the household sector when the pandemic began, we run model simulations to illustrate how payment deferrals and the labour market recovery will affect mortgage defaults.