Covid’s unequal effect on companies
Jun 5th 2021IN ITS LATEST Economic Outlook, the OECD argues that economies are likely to diverge, as some (America and China) recover from the pandemic faster than others (many poor countries). Covid-19 has also struck different sectors differently: tech and pharmaceutical firms prospered; transport and energy firms suffered. Despite such disparities governments’ policies successfully put the economy into “hibernation”: in many places there were fewer bankruptcies in the final quarter of 2020 than in 2019. The trickiness now is in judging when activity is strong enough for support to be withdrawn.Listen to this storyYour browser does not support the element.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android.Dig deeperAll our stories relating to the pandemic and the vaccines can be found on our coronavirus hub. You can also listen to The Jab, our podcast on the race between injections and infections, and find trackers showing the global roll-out of vaccines, excess deaths by country and the virus’s spread across Europe and America.This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Covid’s unequal effect on companies”