Time: 13:00-15:00 (GMT), Wednesday, 13 January 2021
Presenters: Professor Pasquale Scaramozzino, SOAS University of London and and Professor Leonardo Becchetti, University of Rome Tor Vergata
Chair: Professor Victor Murinde, SOAS University of London
Online venue: Click here to join the seminar on Microsoft Teams (For any inquiry about how to join the online seminar, please contact Dr Meng Xie: xm1@soas.ac.uk)

Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a global shock with dramatic consequences on debts of governments called to alleviate the economic and social impact of the crisis on firms and households. We explore conditions for the feasibility of (COVID-19 generated) government debt relief, justified in principle by the exogenous characteristics of the shock. We outline several technically and economically feasible ways (involving debt “freezing”, debt rescheduling or outright debt cancellation) for achieving this goal and discuss their consequences on moral hazard and the Central Bank balance sheets, as well as their potential impact on CB’s independence, reputation and, ultimately, on inflation and exchange rates. We also discuss the distributive concerns which arise when a CB (as in the Eurozone) operates in a Union with several sovereign member states.

Keywords:

debt relief; COVID-19; European Central Bank

Pasquale Scaramozzino is a Professor of Economics in the School of Finance and Management at SOAS University of London. He has taught at the University of Bristol, University College London and Università di Roma Tor Vergata. He received a Laurea in Statistics and Economics from Università di Roma La Sapienza, and an MSc in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics and a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics. He has published articles in numerous academic journals in Economics, Finance, and Statistics, and has been a consultant for the Asian Development Bank, NCCR – Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research on Trade Regulation, UN – Food and Agricultural Organization, and the World Bank. His current main research interests include financial economics, comparative economic systems, and applied econometrics.

Leonardo Becchetti is Professor of Economics and the Director of Master in International Cooperation and Development Economics programme at University of Rome Tor Vergata. He holds a Professorial Research Associate status at School of Finance and Management, SOAS University of London. His research interests cover environmental sustainability, behavioural economics, happiness studies, corporate social responsibility, finance and development. He has published around 500 research works in both international and Italian journals and working papers. Since 2020, he is an Economic Advisor at the Italian Ministry of the Environment working, among others, on removal of environmentally harmful subsidies, elaboration of green label/standards following EU and OECD guidelines and on the guidelines for a post-COVID resilient and sustainable recovery. He is a member of the Sustainable Development Solution Network's European Green Deal Senior Working Group.