Health first – damage to the economy must be mitigated] Protecting the health of the public must take precedence during a pandemic. However, the contingency measures put in place to contain the virus also come with economic ramifications. Public authorities will inevitably play a key role in mitigating the economic damage, and that also applies to the central bank.
The social security system is still largely built on a pay-as-you-go basis, which effectively makes the young generation save more to account for the surging claims on the pension system. Under these circumstances, efforts to encourage consumer credit need to look at the inter-generation consumption behavior.