Fears are growing that the new coronavirus will infect the U.S. economy.
A major U.S. stock market index posted its biggest two-day dropon record, erasing all the gains from the previous two months; companies including Apple and Walmart have been warning of potential sales losses from COVID-19 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Americans to prepare for the outbreak to spread to the United States, with unknown but potentially “bad” consequences.
Lately, many people have asked me, as an economist, a question I haven’t heard in years: Could a virus really send the global and U.S. economies into recession – or worse? Put more pertinently, will COVID-19 trigger an economic meltdown? Continue reading.