Rebuilding the global economy

Rebuilding the global economy is essential to addressing many interlocking problems at once, including recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, inequality, and limiting international conflict. In the summer of 2020, the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) enlisted scholars and stakeholders to deliver 39 memoranda to a wide range of top policymakers and institutions. The authors called for dozens of specific measures to counter an economic crisis that was activated by a global pandemic but that was also years in the making. The memoranda were originally published from October through December 2020 on the Rebuilding the Global Economy microsite. Some of the recommendations have since been implemented. This PIIE Briefing collects the memoranda in a single volume. The mandate of the Institute's "Rebuilding the Global Economy" project has been to connect a long-term strategy with precise policy actions to achieve rapid results at the start of a new US presidential administration. The emphasis has been on advising policymakers and senior officials, as well as the public, in the United States and the European Union, and at the Bretton Woods international economic institutions. At least in the initial phase of the project, PIIE restricted itself to places where the authors had standing and experience to speak. Other nations, regions, and institutions merit the same voice on rebuilding the global economy, so while the Institute does not presume to speak for them, its leadership is encouraging them to engage with the Institute in offering their own similar advice. Many memoranda stress that the disorders they are addressing have accumulated slowly over the last two decades or even longer, culminating with the nationalism and protectionism of recent years and finally in the COVID-19 pandemic and the worldwide economic shock of 2020–21.