Beyond its impact on the healthcare system, the COVID-19 pandemic via economic shocks has already reached labor markets throughout every economy. As of 1 April 2020, ILO estimates indicate a substantial rise in global unemployment, leading to 6.7% decline in working hours in the second quarter of 2020, which is equivalent to 195 million full-time workers.

International School of Economics at TSU (ISET) and its Policy Institute are launching a Series of International Policy Panels online. Online Policy Panels will bring together distinguished economists, policy-makers, private sector leaders, and academics from various world regions to discuss acute and challenging local and global policy issues and facilitate sharing best practices across regions.

In March 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy started to sink into what is expected to be the deepest worldwide recession since World War II. Despite unprecedented policy support, the majority of countries have failed to soften the fallout from the crisis. According to World Bank estimates, global GDP will contract by 5.2% year over year (y/y) in 2020. The United States and Euro Area are projected to shrink by 6.1% and 9.1% respectively, while the Chinese economy is expected to grow at just 1% in 2020.

No two countries that both have a McDonald's have ever been at war wrote American political commentator and author Thomas L. Friedman in 1996. Since then, of course, there have been plenty of instances of countries with McDonald’s warring, including Russia and Georgia. Though, one should not take Friedman’s phrase too literally. Rather he implies that the spread of McDonald's is a part of a worldwide phenomenon of countries integrating with the global economy, which, in turn, makes wars less likely.

The outbreak of the virus and the corresponding containment measures have started to severely affect the global economy. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in its Interim Economic Outlook Report (2020) on March 2nd downgraded 2020 real GDP growth projections for almost every country. The largest reduction in growth projections is seen for China (-0.8 percentage points) with a worldwide real GDP growth rate expected to decline from 2.9% (November 2019 forecast) to 2.4%.