The scale of destruction in Ukraine is already staggering. A new CEPR publication builds on prior experiences with reconstruction following both wars and natural disasters to outline some principles for the future reconstruction of Ukraine. Efforts should include putting the country on the path to EU accession; establishing a stand-alone EU-authorised agency with autonomy to coordinate and manage aid and reconstruction programmes; recognising that Ukraine must own its reconstruction; encouraging inflows of foreign capital and technology transfers; a focus on grants rather than loans; and rebuilding around the principle of a zero-carbon future.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, financial stress indicators suddenly increased. Using this high-frequency daily information conveyed by financial markets, this column presents a newly developed mixed-frequency quantile regression model in order to quantify macro risks in the euro area for the first quarter of 2022. The authors show that macro downside risks perceived by financial markets in the euro area are about three times higher than those for the US economy.
The strength of the labour market recovery from Covid-19, and the extent of the economic scarring, depend on both job creation and whether job seekers look for jobs in the growing sectors of the economy. This column uses a novel dataset to provide direct evidence on the types of jobs sought by workers during the pandemic. It shows that workers increasingly targeted jobs in expanding occupations and industries. Nevertheless, a significant proportion of workers targeted jobs in declining occupations and industries. These workers tend to be the most disadvantaged: the non-employed and those with the lowest education qualifications.
Since Russia’s full-scale offensive began in late February 2022, many civilians have died and Ukraine has suffered massive destruction of its infrastructure. This column attempts to put a figure to the economic damage suffered by Ukraine by comparing its growth path to that of similar Eastern European countries. It estimates that the combined effect of Russia’s 2014 invasion and the current war will cause damage in the region of $1.36 trillion to the Ukrainian economy. And unless there is a large spur in Ukraine’s growth potential, these losses will continue to grow for several year.
Supply disruptions caused by systemic shocks such as Brexit, Covid, and Russia-Ukraine tensions have catapulted the issue of risk in global supply chains to the top of policy agendas. In some sectors, however, there is a wedge between private and social risk appetite, or increased risks due to lack of supply chain visibility. This column discusses the types of risks to and from supply chains, and how supply chains have recovered from past shocks. It then proposes a risk-reward framework for thinking about when policy interventions are necessary.
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