Policies to Fight the Pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean [Audio]

Speaker(s): Dr Eric Parrado Herrera, Dr Victoria Nuguer, Dr Andrew Powell, Professor Andrés Velasco, Brian Wynter | The novel coronavirus, COVID-19, is taking a huge toll across the world, and governments in Latin America and the Caribbean are taking aggressive measures to save lives. Within a matter of weeks, the macroeconomic outlook for the region has changed dramatically. Financing costs have risen, commodities fallen, and large losses of GDP now seem unavoidable. However, the self-imposed partial closure of the economy is anything but a normal recession, and typical countercyclical demand management, both fiscal and monetary, is likely to be inconducive. Introduced by LSE Director Dame Minouche Shafik, a panel from the IDB and LSE will discuss the 2020 Latin American and Caribbean Macroeconomic Report and its diagnosis of a rapidly changing environment and policy recommendations aimed to bring relief, maintain economic stability, and keep the core of the economy intact. Eric Parra