Academic Centre
The COVID-19 crisis has been a true black swan – an unexpected event that is having enormous consequences on virtually every aspect of our daily life. Next to the 1918 flu pandemic that occurred in a very different socioeconomic context, there are no historical parallels close to the current crisis, which makes forecasting and future prediction a tough task. Due to the global scale of the crisis, the collaboration and joint efforts are at the heart of solutions to the COVID-19 situation. Close cooperation is especially important in the Baltic region with highly interconnected economies and societies.
This paper aims to provide a comparative picture of the effects of the crisis and describe the key factors and uncertainties affecting the recovery. Despite the sharp recession, there are also some opportunities arising from the situation, which are discussed in the third section of the paper. The concluding section presents possible coordinated policy actions that could support speedier recovery, long term technological progress and sustainable growth.
This review is a joint work of Foresight Centre of Parliament of Estonia, LV PEAK of the University of Latvia and Government Strategic Analysis Center (STRATA) of Lithuania. The review was finalized in October 2020.
