The International Monetary Fund’s new growth projection shows a global contraction of 4.9%, with every region of the world simultaneously in recession for the first time in human history. Advanced economies are projected to be hit particularly harshly by this crisis, with double digit contractions for the UK and Euro area this year at -10.2% each. Notably, however, is that in 2021 (after the UK will have left the economic orbit of the EU) the UK is set to fall by as much, then grow back faster than the cumulative Euro area.

Of course the projected 2021 growth will not make up for the 2020 recession. All advanced European countries’ economies are set to be smaller at the end of 2021 than they were at the end of 2019.  If we can believe IMF forecasting, individually over 2020 and 2021, Germany’s economy will have shrunk by 2.8%, the UK by 4.5%, France by 6.1%, and Italy and Spain both by 7.3%…