In April 2013, Teva Pharmaceuticals, a large generic drug manufacturer, hired a marketing executive with strong connections throughout the industry with the goal of exploring opportunities to increase profits. Or, in that marketing executive’s own words, to enact “price increase implementation.”

When Enron, a Texas-based energy trader and supplier, filed for bankruptcy in December 2001, its stock was trading at $0.26 per share. The prior year its share price peaked at $90.75. This stunning fall was not the result of economic shocks or events out of Enron’s control.

Interest rates among advanced economies have fallen precipitously in recent years, following a decades-long trend, and fueling fears of secular, or long-term, stagnation. What that means is the interest rate that balances desired saving and investment and, thus, leads to full employment and stable inflation, has not only approached zero but in theory could be negative, especially if not for generous government social programs. Likewise, fiscal deficits have grown.

Despite a significant expansion in central bank balance sheets, some markets like the US money market have experienced increasing interest rate volatility, including significant spikes in the repo rate, notably in September 2019 (see Copeland, Duffie and Yang (2021), Correa, Du, and Liao (2021), D’Avernas and Vanderweyer (2021), and Yang (2021)). This apparent disruption in money markets that depend intimately on the availability of liquidity seems puzzling when the cash and central bank reserves held by the US private sector at the end of 2019 were around 4 times their holdings before the Global Financial Crisis in 2007. Greater liquid holdings do not seem to have made markets for liquidity more immune to liquidity shocks. Indeed, markets were disrupted yet again in March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the banking system was found short in its ability to accommodate the demand for liquidity. In response, the Federal Reserve expanded its balance sheet yet more (see, for example, Kovner and Martin (2020)), buying financial assets from the private sector and placing large quantities of liquid reserves with it (or promising to do so). Where had all the prior liquidity gone?

That unchecked climate change will profoundly affect the world’s economy well into the future is...

When COVID-19 swept the world in early 2020 and closed or restricted business activity, researchers and policymakers scrambled to determine the virus’s economic impact on everything from employment, income, and childcare to business closures, commercial property, and work-from-home strategies. Policymakers needed answers fast to plan the most efficacious responses and direct limited resources to benefit those who needed it the most.