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Challenges and opportunities from the pandemic in Europe: the case of Italy
Challenges and opportunities from the pandemic in Europe: the case of Italy
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- SIEPR policy brief
- Author(s):
- Fogli, Allessandra, author
Pastorino, Elena, author - Contributor(s):
- Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Stanford, CA : Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), August 2021
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- COVID-19 -- economics
COVID-19 -- epidemiology
Europe
Italy
New York City
United States - Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- The COVID-19 pandemic has presented the world with challenges that are unprecedented in recent times. For the bloc of 27 European countries and roughly 500 million people that constitute the European Union (EU), these challenges have been coupled with those stemming from its peculiar design. Unlike the U.S., the EU is a political and economic union that binds only 19 of its members by a common currency, the euro, but is not fiscally integrated. As of 2019, the EU budget accounted for less than 1 percent of its gross national income. In the U.S., the corresponding figure was almost 21 percent. Most decisions about taxes and spending occur at the national level. But fiscal measures by member countries such as targeted transfers to specific constituencies (“bailouts”), which have been employed in the U.S. during the current and past recessions, are heavily restricted--if not specifically prohibited. Addressing the pandemic, from the control of contagions to the development and the distribution of vaccines, has repeatedly tested the EU’s institutional coordination and readiness of response. The crisis has cast a new light on the ability of the EU to confront global challenges and spurred a rethinking of its role vis-à-vis member countries. An outcome of such a process has been the approval of an ambitious recovery plan called “Next Generation EU” (NGEU), worth nearly 800 billion euros, which is meant to support member countries in the aftermath of the crisis and to set the EU toward a stable path of sustained long-term growth. The budget for the plan, part of the 2021-2027 EU budget of 2 trillion euros, represents the largest stimulus package ever financed by the EU. The first part of this policy brief examines how the pandemic unfolded in Italy, whose experience in many ways has mirrored that in the U.S.. By the end of this past June, Italy had suffered 2,110 deaths per million people relative to the 1,827 recorded in the U.S.. We will consider the specific health and economic emergencies that Italy has faced and contrast the experiences of two major cities in the U.S. and Italy, New York City and Milan, respectively. The second part of the policy brief reviews the fiscal measures adopted by Italy and the EU in response to the pandemic and assesses the opportunities that NGEU offers to Italy as well as the policy challenges ahead.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-ND license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (14 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918383974906676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918383974906676