Read, Robert and Armstrong, Harvey (2024) Growth volatility and resilience in small economies : The impacts of the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. In: Small States : Environmental & Socioeconomic Vulnerabilities & Resilience. Springer. (In Press)
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
This chapter analyses the separate and combined effects of the global financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic on the economic growth performance of small economies. These economies experienced especially severe adverse impacts from the financial crisis and generally sluggish recoveries owing to their heavy reliance upon the financial services and tourism sectors. The global Covid-19 ‘lock-down’ affected many small economies disproportionately owing to the cessation of international tourism and their critical dependence upon the sector for employment and export earnings. In both crises, many small economies experienced significant adverse effects out of line with the global average. Unlike the financial crisis. Data for 61 small economies is analysed for the period 2007-2022 and for four distinct sub-periods – pre-crisis, post-crisis, pre-pandemic and post-pandemic. The study demonstrates that most were adversely affected by both crises, some especially severely and persistently, although most have experienced limited growth in the period 2007-2022 as a whole. Several small economies however, had yet to recover their 2007 economic activity levels by 2022. The effects of the two crises, both separately and combined, highlight the greater exposure of small economies to the effects of global shocks transmitted via the key sectors upon which they depend.