Any attempt to anticipate the future inevitably leads us to analyze the past. This exercise is more evident when we face a crisis, always subject to the uncertainty of the moment, with suffering being in most cases the only common factor to consider.
Comparing the current situation now with the Great Depression or the recession derived from the financial crisis may be a futile exercise. In both cases, these were crises brewed over a long period of time, with ineffective and even inadequate responses from the authorities and which, perhaps as a consequence of all this, lasted too long.
The exceptional nature of the pandemic has caused an economic hibernation, forced by the need to prevent infections. A dramatic supply shock, but probably limited in time. Reasonable control of the disease should allow for a relatively rapid recovery of the economy. This is what the various measures taken by political and economic authorities aim for, as well as by the rest of society, such as banks, which are working hard to minimize the impact of the crisis on families and businesses, and to prepare the way for the subsequent recovery.
The health crisis is global, which explains the symmetry we observe in economic deterioration across the planet. But the expected recovery, also global, will show a different intensity between countries and areas. The future of the recovery in the first instance and its subsequent solidity will depend on the measures taken in the present and also on how they are modulated over time. One thing that past crises and their management errors have taught us is that we must act quickly, decisively, and in a coordinated manner.
José Luis Martínez Campuzano, spokesperson for the Spanish Banking Association
