How different will this time be? Assessing the prospects for economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis

Covid-19 has already generated a sharp fall in global GDP and a rapid rise in unemployment, but what kind of recovery can we expect once the crisis passes? Iain Begg and Jun Qian write that in the most optimistic scenario, the world will experience a return to trend growth once lockdowns are lifted. The more worrying possibilities are that a short-lived recovery could be followed by a further downturn, or that the outbreak could wipe out economic capacity permanently in some countries, with trend growth resuming from a lower base.