A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF ECONOMIC CYCLES IN TERMS OF CHRONOLOGY

Abstract

  The COVID-19 pandemic has paralyzed large parts of the global economy, sharply restricting economic activities and increasing uncertainties. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments across the world implemented lockdown policies to limit the spread of infections. In numerous cases, these policies were eventually extended. The unprecedented and simultaneous shock to global demand and supply have rendered millions unemployed. Governments in developed economies have rushed to provide some financial relief—unemployment benefits, grants and loans—to households and businesses most affected by the collapse of economic activities. Millions in both developed and developing countries, including Georgia, face the ominous prospect of falling back into poverty. Declining growth and rising poverty during the crisis and recovery period will likely increase income and wealth inequality, undermine social cohesion, and breed further discontent and instability around the world. Governments are grappling with measures to minimize the economic impacts of the pandemic. The duration and severity of the pandemic and its socioeconomic fallouts, will determine whether the world will be back to the pre-crisis normal economic activities or embrace a new normal in coming years.
  The pandemic has caused a rift in our cognition and put us in front of a new reality. How do we perceive the rest of the world in the face of a global threat?! Is there a fundamental reassessment of values?! Along with all other areas, recent months’ crisis has once again shown us how unclear economic science can be. No one could predict exactly how deep the crisis would be, how long the global lockdown would last, and what impact it could have on unemployment, inflation, demand and other economic indicators. So far, the only thing that almost all researchers and economists agree is that the cost of lockdowns in many countries is already very high.
  In the following study, we will discuss two main subjects on the example of Georgia: the problems of the capital markets and the pension fund development and the issue of foreign debt in post-Covid-19 Georgia. This topics are very actual given that the government of Georgia will start serving foreign debt from 2021, in the post-pandemic period. At the same time, the country is reforming the capital market and the pension sector.