Occupational licensing - how much and what effects? - OECD Ecoscope

Occupational licensing – how
much and what effects?
By Indre Bambalaite, Giuseppe Nicoletti, Christina von Rueden,
OECD Economics Department

Occupational licensing – the legal authorisation from a
national authority or a professional association to practice a
specific occupation – is one of the fastest-growing labour
market institutions since World War II (Kleiner and Krueger,
2010). It is not just lawyers, architects and engineers that
have to comply with minimum human capital requirements,
administrative burdens or mobility restrictions, in order to
demonstrate professional aptitude and protect the public from
unqualified, incompetent or unscrupulous providers. Offering
skincare or hair removal services as a licensed cosmetologist
in Pennsylvania, for instance, takes 1250 hours of training, a
state exam and a blank criminal record, and to become a baker
in France one needs to take a 7 hour long state exam
(Institute of Justice, 2018; Von Rueden and Bambalaite, 2020).
These occupational entry regulations (OER) often reduce both
business dynamism and employment, and generate higher prices
for customers. However, despite their ubiquity, evidence about
the intensity, scope and effects of OER has so far been
confined to selected countries and/or professions, thus
impeding cross-country and cross-occupational comparability on
a larger scale. Also, their potential effects on productivity
growth have been ignored.

New cross-country measures call for a review of OER and the
need for more regional integration

Using new data on OER, OECD economists (Von Rueden and
Bambalaite, 2020) shed light on the scope and stringency of
these regulations for a set of 18 OECD countries, India and
South Africa – with Canada and the United States being covered
at the province-level or state-level – in ten personal
(aestheticians, bakers, butchers, driving instructors,
electricians, hairdressers, painters, plumbers, taxi drivers,
and nurses) and five professional services (accountants,
architects, civil engineers, lawyers and real-estate agents).
The results illustrate that even countries sharing the same
public goals in terms of safety and consumer satisfaction,
sometimes apply very different approaches in pursuing them
(Figure 1). Looking at successful experiences abroad,
countries can learn from each other about ways to achieve
these goals with lighter occupational entry requirements. More
strikingly, regulatory approaches vary a great deal even
within federal countries such as the US or Canada or economic
unions such as the EU (Figure 2). Despite a myriad of policy
initiatives aimed at facilitating the movement of
professionals across these areas, these findings suggest the
need for further integration efforts at the federal and
international level.

Ill-designed occupational     entry   regulations   can   curb
productivity in services

While there is abundant evidence on the side effects of OER on
the economy – via less firm entry, lower employment and higher
prices (e.g. Athanassiou et al. 2015; Blair and Chung, 2018;
Cahuc and Kramarz, 2004; Larsen et al., 2019; Kleiner et al.,
2016; Kleiner, 2017; Kleiner and Soltas, 2019) – evidence on
the effects of occupational entry regulations on firm-level
and aggregate productivity growth is scant. Yet, by creating
barriers to entry, OER might also unduly protect incumbents,
stifle business dynamism and prevent the most productive firms
from gaining market shares, weighing down on productivity
growth in economies that are increasingly driven by
entrepreneurial initiative and innovation. This concern arises
especially at a time when governments are fiercely seeking
ways to reverse the persistent productivity slowdown in
advanced economies.

Looking at the effects of OER on the performance of firms that
are subject to them, Bambalaite et al. (2020) highlight two
channels through which productivity could be adversely
affected. First, OER could lower firms’ incentives and
capabilities to improve productivity by adopting best
practices and hire the best professionals by curbing entry,
competitive pressures and business dynamism. Estimations
suggest that if those regulations were aligned on the least
stringent ones, productivity could indeed increase by over 1.5
percentage points on average across occupations and firms,
with the greatest gains accruing to high productive firms
(Figure 3). Considering that the average productivity growth
of the firms in the sample is less than half a percentage
point per year, this increase would be significant. Second,
OER can undermine the ability of the most productive firms to
grow by limiting the supply of skilled professionals and their

ability to move across firms within occupations, across
occupations and across geographic jurisdictions (Johnson and
Kleiner, 2020). In this regard, Bambalaite et al. (2020)
estimate that in countries like Germany or Italy (where OER
are the most stringent among the EU countries surveyed) easing
occupational entry requirements to meet Swedish standards
(which are the most lenient) could increase by over 10 percent
the contribution of labour reallocation to employment growth
in the personal and professional services covered in their
analysis.

For
policy makers, the time to act is now

In light of the renewed evidence on the undesired economic
consequences of ill-designed regulations, appropriate
strategies for reforming occupational regulations are urgently

warranted. While preserving their public policy aims,
occupational entry regulations could be usefully reviewed by
(1) making means more proportionate to ends (e.g. aligning on
successful experiences abroad); (2) shifting the focus from
inputs to outputs when the purpose of the regulation is to
ensure that the outcome (such as a building standard or the
quality of meat sold) rather than the service itself is of
desired quality (e.g. via ex-post evaluation); (3) extending
mutual recognition of entry requirements across jurisdictions
(especially within federal countries and economic unions) and
(4) eliminating mobility restrictions that create unnecessary
labour market rigidities. Regulators should also consider
whether licensing systems could be replaced with lighter
alternatives, such as certification schemes, and where
information asymmetry concerns persist, alleviate those
through online consumer information platforms (e.g. leveraging
on reliable service quality review systems).

See also: Rethinking occupational entry regulations on VoxEU

References:

Athanassiou, E., N. Kanellopoulos, R. Karagiannis and A.
Kotsi (2015), “The Effects of Liberalization of Professional
Requirements in
Greece”, Centre for Planning and Economic
Research                                              (KEPE),
www.ec.europa.eu/DocsRoom/documents/13363/attachments/1/transl
ations/en/renditions/native.

Bambalaite, I., G. Nicoletti and C. von Rueden (2020),
“Occupational entry regulations and their effects              on
productivity in services:

Measurement and firm-level evidence”,         OECD   Economics
Department Working Papers,
No. 1605, OECD Publishing, Paris.

Blair, P. Q., and B. W. Chung (2018), “How much barrier to
entry is occupational licensing?”, NBER
Working         Paper        Series,         No.        25262,
https://doi.org/10.3386/w25262

Cahuc, P. and F.
Kramarz (2004), “De la précarité à la mobilité: vers une
sécurité sociale professionnelle.
La documentation française”, Ministère de l’économie, des
finances et de
l’industrie, Ministère de l’emploi, du travail et de la
cohésion sociale.

Institute of Justice (2018), “Pennsylvania Fresh Start: Law
Denies Woman Right to Work Because Of Irrelevant Crime
Convictions”, available
at
https://ij.org/report/the-continuing-burden-of-occupational-li
censing-in-the-united-states/

Johnson, J. and M. M. Kleiner (2017), “Is Occupational
Licensing a Barrier to Interstate Migration?”, Federal Reserve
Bank    of    Minneapolis,      Staff    report    No.   561,
https://doi.org/10.21034/sr.561.

Kleiner, M.M., A. Marier, K. W. Park, and C. Wing, (2016),
“Relaxing occupational licensing requirements: Analyzing wages
and prices for a

medical service”, The Journal of Law and
Economics,           Vol.         59(2),         pp.261-291,
https://doi.org/10.1086/688093.

Kleiner, M. M. (2017), “The influence of occupational
licensing and regulation”, IZA World of
Labor, No. 392, https://doi.org/10.15185/izawol.392.

Kleiner, M. M. and E. J. Soltas (2018), “A Welfare Analysis
of    Occupational      Licensing      in    U.S.    States”,
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3140912.

International corporate tax
reform could support global
tax revenues
By David Bradbury, Tibor Hanappi, Pierce O’Reilly, Ana Cinta
Gonzalez (OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration), Asa
Johansson, Stéphane Sorbe, Valentine Millot, Sébastien Turban
(OECD Economics Department)

Recent economic analysis suggests that a proposed solution to
the tax challenges arising from the digitalisation of the
economy under negotiation at the OECD would have a significant
positive impact on global tax revenues.

The analysis puts the combined effect of the two-pillar
solution under discussion at up to 4% of global corporate
income tax (CIT) revenues, or USD 100 billion annually. The
revenue gains are broadly similar across high, middle and low-
income economies, as a share of corporate tax revenues.

The analysis was released just weeks after the international
community reaffirmed its commitment to reach a consensus-based
long-term solution to the tax challenges arising from the
digitalisation of the economy, and to continue working toward
an agreement by the end of 2020, according to a Statement by
the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS.

The Inclusive Framework on BEPS, which brings together 137
countries and jurisdictions on an equal footing for
multilateral negotiation of international tax rules, decided
during its January 29-30 meeting to move ahead with a two-
pillar negotiation    to   address   the   tax   challenges   of
digitalisation.

Participants agreed to pursue the negotiation of new rules on
where tax should be paid (“nexus” rules) and on what portion
of profits they should be taxed (“profit allocation” rules),
on the basis of a “Unified Approach” under Pillar One. The aim
is to ensure that multinational enterprises (MNEs) conducting
sustained and significant business in places where they may
not have a physical presence can be taxed in such
jurisdictions. They also decided to continue discussions on
Pillar Two, which aims to address remaining base erosion and
profit shifting (BEPS) issues and ensure that international
businesses pay a minimum level of tax.

The economic analysis and impact assessment of the Pillar One

and Pillar Two proposals is being undertaken to inform key
decisions on the design and parameters of the tax reform to be
agreed by Inclusive Framework members as part of the
negotiations underway at the OECD. The analysis covers data
from more than 200 jurisdictions, including all members of the
Inclusive Framework, and more than 27,000 MNE groups.
Assumptions in the preliminary analysis are illustrative, and
do not pre-judge decisions to be taken by the Inclusive
Framework.

The analysis shows that the Pillar One reform – designed to
re-allocate some taxing rights to market jurisdictions,
regardless of physical presence – would also bring a small tax
revenue gain for most jurisdictions. Under Pillar One, low and
middle-income economies are expected to gain relatively more
revenue than advanced economies, with investment hubs
experiencing some loss in tax revenues. More than half of the
profit re-allocated would come from 100 large MNE groups.

The analysis shows that Pillar Two could raise a significant
amount of additional tax revenues. By reducing the tax rate
differentials between jurisdictions, the reform is expected to
lead to a significant reduction in profit shifting by MNEs.
This will be important for developing economies as they tend
to be more adversely affected by profit shifting than high-
income economies.

The overall direct effect on investment costs is expected to
be small in most countries, as the reforms target firms with
high levels of profitability and low effective tax rates. The
reforms would also reduce the influence of corporate taxes on
investment location decisions. In addition, failure to reach a
consensus-based solution would likely lead to further
unilateral measures and greater uncertainty.

References

OECD Webcast presentation of the preliminary results of the
Economic analysis and impact assessment of potential reforms
to address the tax challenges arising from the digitalisation
of      the       economy       (February        2020):
www.oecd.org/tax/beps/webcast-economic-analysis-impact-assessm
ent-february-2020.htm.

OECD Secretary General Tax Report to G20 Finance Ministers and
Central       Bank     Governors       (February        2020):
http://www.oecd.org/ctp/oecd-secretary-general-tax-report-g20-
finance-ministers-riyadh-saudi-arabia-february-2020.pdf

Statement by the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS on the
Two-Pillar Approach to Address the Tax Challenges Arising from
the Digitalisation
of        the        Economy         (January         2020):
http://www.oecd.org/tax/beps/statement-by-the-oecd-g20-inclusi
ve-framework-on-beps-january-2020.pdf

The human capital paradox: A
measurement issue?
by Jarmila Botev, Balázs Égert, Zuzana Smidova, David Turner,
OECD Economics Department

Human capital is widely regarded as a fundamental input in the
theoretical growth literature. Recommendations to boost it

feature prominently among reform priorities for a great number
of countries (Figure 1). Yet, paradoxically, quantifying the
macroeconomic effects of human capital has often proven
frustratingly elusive.

As this blogpost explains, in part this is due to the
challenge of measuring human capital. A newly released OECD
measure of human capital works well in productivity
regressions, providing the “missing” link between growth and
human capital.

Human capital can be defined as the stock of knowledge, skills
and other personal characteristics of people that helps them
to be productive. Such knowledge is gained in formal education
(e.g. early childhood care, compulsory schooling and adult
training programmes) but also informally, via on-the-job
learning and work experience. Health also influences one’s
productivity. Nevertheless, there is no widely accepted

empirical measure that captures all these dimensions across
many countries and over time.

The early macroeconomic growth literature used various
quantitative measures of education as a proxy for human
capital, including literacy rates or enrolment rates at
various levels of education. More recent studies use mean
years of schooling (average number of completed years of
education of a country’s entire population). However, the link
of these proxies to macroeconomic outcomes has generally been
poor. A meta-analysis of 60 studies published over the period
of 1989-2011 found that around 20% of the reported coefficient
estimates on human capital have the “wrong” (negative) sign
(Benos and Zotou, 2014). In a dozen of papers by Robert J.
Barro, based on similar specifications, techniques and
datasets, only about a half of the coefficient estimates is
positive and statistically significant. Recent OECD studies
confirm the difficulty of finding a robust positive effect of
human capital on income per capita or productivity levels when
looking at the OECD countries (Botev et al., 2019; Guillemette
et al, 2017, Fournier and Johanson 2016).

And, this is the paradox, the widely accepted importance of
human capital, but the difficulty of finding an empirically
relevant measure of it — which our recent work addresses. The
OECD’s newly released human capital measure combines an up-to-
date dataset of mean years of schooling (the 2018 update of
Goujon et al, 2016) with rates of return based on recent
evidence on wage premia compiled mostly by the World Bank
(Psacharopoulos and Patrinos, 2004; Montenegro and Patrinos,
2014). Unlike earlier studies, it applies different returns
for five groups of countries and three periods. Including such
measure of human capital in various macroeconomic productivity
regressions yields significant and positive relationships that
economists have been looking for.

Find out more: http://www.oecd.org/economy/human-capital/

Botev, J. B. Égert, Z. Smidova and D, Turner (2019), “A new
macroeconomic measure of human capital with strong empirical
links to productivity“, OECD Economics Department Working
Paper No. 1575

References

Benos, N. and S.
Zotou (2014), “Education and
Economic Growth: A Meta-Regression         Analysis”,       World
Development, 64
(C), 669-689.

Fournier, J. and Å. Johansson (2016), “The Effect of the Size
and the Mix of Public Spending on Growth and Inequality“, OECD
Economics Department Working Papers,
No. 1344, OECD Publishing, Paris.

Guillemette, Y., et al. (2017), “A
revised approach to productivity convergence in long-term
scenarios“, OECD Economics Department Working Papers, No.
1385, OECD Publishing, Paris

OECD (2019), Economic Policy Reforms
2019: Going for Growth, OECD Publishing, Paris.

Psacharopoulos, G.
and H. Patrinos (2004), “Returns to

Investment in     Education:   A   Further   Update”,   Education
Economics,
12(2), 111-134.

Psacharopoulos, G.
and H. Patrinos (2018), “Returns to
Investment in Education A Decennial Review of the Global
Literature”, World Bank
Policy Research Working Paper No. 8402.

Housing, wealth accumulation
and   wealth  distribution:
risks and opportunities
By Orsetta Causa and Nicolas Woloszko

Is housing a vehicle for wealth accumulation for middle class
and lower-income groups? Can housing mitigate wealth
inequality? Assessing housing from a wealth distribution
perspective is all the more important in a context where
inequality has been rising, where the capital share of income
has increased relative to labour and where wealth inequality
is much higher than income inequality, potentially undermining
equality of opportunity and social mobility.

In a recent paper (Housing-wealth-accumulation-and-wealth-
distribution-evidence-and-stylized-facts_) we shed light on

these questions and deliver new evidence and stylised facts on
housing, wealth accumulation and wealth distribution, relying
on an in-depth analysis of micro-data on household wealth
across OECD countries. We assess the role of housing in
shaping the wealth distribution by focusing on assets and
liabilities, with particular attention to the bottom of the
income and wealth distributions.

We document a strong negative cross-country association
between homeownership and wealth inequality. Housing tends to
equalise the distribution of wealth from a static cross-
country perspective because it is the most important and most
widely owned asset in household balance sheets: housing is the
chief asset of the middle class (Figure 1). Households in the
top of the wealth distribution hold more diversified
portfolios, including business and financial assets, while
less wealthy households own virtually nothing.

Housing is the primary asset in households’ portfolios, but is
also their primary liability. This is especially true for
young homeowners and homeowners at the bottom of the
distribution. Yet one lesson from the financial crisis is that
debt creates opportunities but also risks, particularly for
vulnerable households. We deliver new cross-country evidence
on the socio-economic distribution of mortgage debt and
financial vulnerability. This is relevant for monitoring the
sensitivity of households to income losses and declines in

house prices. Our analysis shows that the strong expansion in
mortgages over the last decades, and in particular prior to
the financial crisis, is very likely to have contributed to
high and sometimes excessive housing-related indebtedness.
Debt-to-income ratios are well above 100% in most OECD
countries and exceed 200% in some of them (Figure 2).
Households at the bottom of the income distribution are
particularly vulnerable, with values exceeding the
conventional at-risk threshold value of 300%.

We compute micro-based tenure wealth gaps, that is, the net
wealth ratio between homeowners and renters, in order to shed
light on the role of housing as a vehicle for wealth
accumulation. We find that homeowners tend to be wealthier
than renters, even when housing wealth is excluded. However,
we also find that this gap is significantly reduced in a
quantile regression framework that controls for household
drivers of wealth accumulation. These findings do not strongly

support the existence of a causal effect of homeownership on
wealth accumulation. Tenure wealth gaps are likely to reflect
self-selection mechanisms. Households with a higher ex-ante
propensity to save and an appetite for wealth accumulation
select themselves into homeownership rather than becoming
homeowner making them more prone to accumulate wealth.

Housing is negatively associated with wealth inequality, but
also with residential mobility, as documented in our paper:
this reflects cross-country differences in the housing tenure
mix to the extent that homeowners tend to be less mobile than
private renters. This finding is not new. Although causality
cannot be easily established, a common conjecture is that
mobility is lower among owner-occupiers than renters because
owners face higher transaction costs of relocating and
therefore spend a longer time in their residence in order to
spread the costs over a longer time period.

Overall,    even   if   wealth   inequality   is   lower   where
homeownership is more widespread, encouraging homeownership is
probably not the appropriate policy response to make wealth
more equally distributed, as this may imply trade-offs with
other policy objectives such as economic resilience and labour
mobility.

Read the full paper: Causa, O., N. Woloszko and D. Leite
(2019), “Housing, wealth accumulation and wealth distribution:
Evidence and stylized facts”, OECD Economics Department
Working     Papers,     No.    1588,    OECD     Publishing,
Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/86954c10-en.

Tackling the fallout from the
coronavirus
by Laurence Boone, OECD Chief Economist

Covid-19 (coronavirus) hit China at the start of December and
outbreaks have spread more widely. The virus is bringing
considerable human pain. It is also resulting in significant
economic disruption from quarantines, restrictions on travel,
factory closures and a sharp decline in many service sector
activities.

The world economy is in its most precarious position since the
global financial crisis.

Global growth, cooling for the past two years to a subdued
level, has been dealt a nasty blow by the coronavirus. High
frequency indicators such as coal demand, suggest the Chinese
economy slowed sharply in the first quarter of 2020. As China
accounts for 17% of global GDP, 11% of world trade, 9% of
global tourism and over 40% of global demand of some
commodities, negative spillovers to the rest of the world are
sizeable. There is mounting evidence of sharp declines in
tourism, supply chain disruptions, weak commodity demand and
falling consumer confidence.

How far the    epidemic   spreads   will   determine   economic
prospects.

Even under a best-case scenario of containment to China and
limited outbreaks in other countries as we see today, the OECD
expects a sharp slowdown in world growth in early 2020. We
have revised our projection for the year from an already low
3% in November to only 2.4%, lower than in any year since the
financial crisis. In a downside-risk scenario where epidemics
break out in some other countries across the globe, the
slowdown will be sharper and more prolonged. Our modelling
suggests that the level of world GDP would fall as low as 1.5%
this year, halving the OECD’s previous 2020 projection from
last November of 3%. Containment measures and fear of
infection would hit production as well as spending hard and
drive many of the epidemic affected countries into outright
recession.

Governments cannot afford to wait.

Regardless of where the virus spreads, the world economy,
previously weakened by persistent trade and political
tensions, has already suffered a sharp setback. Households are
uncertain and apprehensive. Firms in sectors such as tourism,
electronics and automobiles are already reporting supply
disruptions and/or a collapse in demand. The world economy is
now too fragile for governments to gamble on an automatic
sharp bounce-back.

Containing the epidemic and limiting cases of serious illness
is the policy priority.

Limiting travel, quarantines and cancelling events are
required to contain the epidemic. Increased government
spending should be first directed to the health sector,
tackling virus outbreaks and supporting research.

Complementary policy action can at least mitigate the economic
and social fallout.

Supporting vulnerable households and firms is essential.

Containment measures and the fear of infection can cause
sudden stops in economic activity. Beyond health, the priority
should be on allowing short-time working schemes and providing
vulnerable households temporary direct transfers to tide them
over loss of income from work shutdowns and layoffs.
Increasing liquidity buffers to firms in affected sectors is
also needed to avoid debt default of otherwise sound
enterprises. Reducing fixed charges and taxes and credit
forbearance would also help to reduce the pressure on firms
facing an abrupt falloff in demand.

If the epidemic spreads outside China, the G20 should lead a
coordinated policy response.

Countries should cooperate on support to health care in
countries where it is needed, as well as on containment
measures. In addition, if countries announced coordinated
fiscal and monetary support, confidence effects would compound
the effect of policies. This would help reverse the drubbing
in confidence that a more widespread outbreak would provoke.
It would also be more effective than working alone. Our work
presented in the Economic Outlook 2019 shows that if G20
economies implement stimulus measures collectively, rather
than alone, the growth effects in the median G20 economy will
be 1/3 higher after just two years. Some would say it is trite
to call for international cooperation. However, in this
globally connected economy and society, the coronavirus and
its economic and social fallout is everyone’s problem, even if

firms decide in the wake of this virus shock to repatriate
production and make it a bit less interdependent.

For more information visit the latest Interim Economic
Outlook, released 2 March 2020

Faire face aux répercussions
de l’épidémie de coronavirus
de Laurence Boone, Cheffe économiste de l’OCDE

Une épidémie de coronavirus (Covid-19) vient de frapper la
Chine en ce début d’année et des foyers se déclarent dans de
nombreux pays. Le virus est la cause d’une souffrance humaine
considérable. Il est aussi à l’origine de perturbations
économiques non négligeables résultant des mesures de
quarantaine, des restrictions aux déplacements, de la
fermeture d’usines et de la forte contraction de l’activité
dans de nombreux secteurs de services. Si l’on ne tient compte
que de la situation actuelle, la flambée de l’épidémie
entraînerait un recul de 0.5 point de pourcentage de la
croissance du PIB mondial, qui serait ramenée à 2.4 % cette
année. Cependant, l’incertitude demeure quant à l’évolution de
l’épidémie : elle pourrait continuer à se propager, ce qui
induirait une aggravation de ses effets sur le plan humain
ainsi qu’un tassement plus marqué de la croissance mondiale.
Si l’épidémie devait toucher les économies avancées de l’OCDE
avec la même intensité que la Chine, la croissance mondiale

serait divisée par deux par rapport à nos prévisions du mois
de novembre.

L’économie mondiale se trouve dans la position la plus
périlleuse qu’elle ait connue depuis la crise financière
mondiale.

La croissance mondiale, qui s’est essoufflée pendant les deux
dernières années jusqu’à atteindre son faible niveau actuel, a
subi de plein fouet l’épisode du coronavirus. Les indicateurs
à haute fréquence comme la demande de charbon, qui se situe à
60 % de son niveau normal, donnent à penser que l’économie
chinoise a accusé un fort ralentissement au premier trimestre
2020. Parce que la Chine représente 17 % du PIB mondial, 11 %
du commerce mondial, 9 % du tourisme mondial et plus de 40 %
de la demande mondiale de certains produits de base, les
retombées négatives sur le reste du monde sont considérables.
Des signes de plus en plus probants attestant un repli
prononcé de l’activité dans le secteur du tourisme, des
ruptures dans les chaînes d’approvisionnement, une atonie de
la demande de produits de base et une érosion de la confiance
des consommateurs, sont perceptibles.

L’étendue de l’épidémie sera un paramètre déterminant des
perspectives économiques.

Même dans un scénario où l’épidémie serait circonscrite à la
Chine et ne donnerait lieu qu’à des flambées limitées dans les
autres pays, comme c’est le cas aujourd’hui, l’OCDE s’attend à
un fort ralentissement de la croissance dans le monde début
2020. Nous avons ramené notre prévision pour l’année, qui
était déjà basse, soit 3 %, à 2.4 % seulement, le chiffre le
plus faible depuis la crise financière. Dans un scénario de

propagation de l’épidémie à certains autres pays du globe, le
ralentissement serait plus prononcé et plus prolongé. Notre
modélisation laisse à penser que la croissance mondiale en
2020 pourrait alors ne pas dépasser 1.5 %. Les mesures de
confinement et la peur de l’infection porteraient un rude coup
à la production ainsi qu’aux dépenses et entraîneraient un
grand nombre de pays touchés par l’épidémie dans une véritable
récession.

Les pouvoirs publics ne peuvent se permettre d’attendre.

Indépendamment de l’étendue de la propagation du virus,
l’économie mondiale, précédemment éprouvée par la persistance
de tensions commerciales et politiques, a déjà essuyé un coup
de frein brutal. Les ménages sont en proie à l’incertitude et
à l’appréhension. Les entreprises dans des secteurs comme le
tourisme, l’électronique et l’automobile font d’ores et déjà
état de ruptures d’approvisionnement et/ou d’un effondrement
de la demande. L’économie mondiale est désormais trop fragile
pour que les pouvoirs publics puissent se permettre de tabler
sur un fort rebond automatique.

La priorité des gouvernements est de contenir l’épidémie et de
limiter le nombre de cas graves.

La limitation des déplacements, des mesures de quarantaine et
l’annulation de manifestations s’imposent pour endiguer
l’épidémie. Il conviendrait d’orienter les dépenses publiques
supplémentaires consenties d’abord vers le secteur de la santé
afin de combattre la flambée du nombre de cas et de mettre au
point un vaccin. Les actions complémentaires susceptibles
d’être engagées peuvent à tout le moins viser à atténuer les
répercussions économiques et sociales de l’épidémie.

Il est essentiel d’apporter un soutien aux ménages et aux
entreprises les plus vulnérables.

Les mesures de confinement et la peur de l’infection peuvent
déclencher des interruptions soudaines de l’activité
économique. Au-delà de la santé, la priorité devrait être
d’autoriser la mise en place de dispositifs de chômage partiel
et l’octroi aux ménages vulnérables de transferts directs pour
les protéger des pertes de revenus provoquées par les
fermetures d’entreprises et les licenciements. Il est
également indispensable d’accroître les volants de liquidités
dont disposent les entreprises dans les secteurs concernés
pour éviter que des entreprises structurellement saines ne se
trouvent en défaut de paiement. En plus d’une réduction des
charges fixes et des impôts, une certaine indulgence de la
part des créanciers aiderait également à relâcher la pression
qui s’exerce sur les entreprises confrontées            à   un
fléchissement soudain de la demande.

Si l’épidémie se propageait au-delà des frontières de la
Chine, il conviendrait que le G20 pilote une relance
budgétaire et monétaire coordonnée.

Le but serait de contribuer à inverser l’effondrement de la
confiance que provoquerait une propagation plus large de la
maladie. Une action collective serait en outre plus efficace
que des actions isolées. Pour ce qui est du soutien à apporter
aux pays qui en ont besoin en matière de santé et des mesures
de confinement, les pays devraient coopérer. De plus, si des
pays annonçaient un soutien budgétaire et monétaire coordonné,
cette annonce aurait des effets sur la confiance qui se
conjugueraient à ceux des politiques menées. Nos travaux
montrent que si les économies du G20 mettaient en œuvre des
mesures de relance de manière collective plutôt qu’isolément,

leurs effets sur la croissance dans l’économie du G20 médiane
seraient amplifiés d’un tiers au bout de deux ans seulement.
D’aucuns n’hésiteraient pas à dénoncer la banalité d’un appel
à la coopération internationale. Néanmoins, dans une économie
et une société connectées à l’échelle planétaire, le
coronavirus et ses retombées économiques et sociales sont
l’affaire de tous, même si des entreprises décident, au
lendemain de cette crise, de rapatrier leur production et
d’aller vers un peu moins d’interdépendance.

Pour plus d’informations: Perspectives économiques de l’OCDE,
Rapport intermédiaire mars 2020