2020 Latin American and Caribbean Macroeconomic Report: Policies to Fight the Pandemic

The novel coronavirus is taking a huge toll across the world, and governments in Latin America and the Caribbean are right to take 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. The 2020 Latin American and Caribbean Macroeconomic Report provides a diagnosis of this rapidly changing environment and proposes policy recommendations aimed to bring relief, maintain economic stability, and keep the core of the economy intact.