A comparative analysis of COVID-19 and global financial crises: evidence from US economy

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis has had deep adverse effects on a global level, affecting many economies and worsening their conditions which may have led to severe recession or even depression. The numbers of positive cases have risen sharply over the last few months, and the fatalities have also reached their peak. This study aims to examine the impact of the global financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic on the macroeconomic variables of the US economy. It also provides an understanding in a descriptive format, to analyze and compare the global financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic, in a tabulated and graphical format. For analysis purposes, the tables and average method have been used. For the graphical formats, charts have been used for the later year of 2008, and the beginning of the 2009 global financial crisis. The first six months of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have also been taken into consideration. The results have confirmed that the current COVID-19 pandemic shows more severity in terms of economic activity, than the global financial crisis had experienced. Moreover, the impact of the crisis on the recession probabilities in the current pandemic is lower than that at the time of the global financial crisis.