Title: How to pay for the coronavirus emergency: the fiscal challenge

Authors: Jan Toporowski; Robert Calvert Jump

Addresses: SOAS University of London, Thornhaugh Street, London, WC1H 0XG, UK ' Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability, University of Greenwich, Park Row, Greenwich, London, SE10 9LS, UK

Abstract: The coronavirus emergency presents the British Government with the greatest fiscal challenge since the Second World War. While the course of the emergency will be determined by the nature of the infection and the arrangements for dealing with it, the course of the recovery from the epidemic will be determined by the financing of the emergency, whether this is done by the government, or left to households and firms running up private debt. The quickest recovery will be obtained by maintaining a high level of government borrowing serviced by taxes on wealth and profits. This would reverse some of the regressive features of the epidemic which is exacerbating an unequal distribution of income and wealth.

Keywords: coronavirus costs; fiscal policy; taxation; government debt; debt management; Keynes; Kalecki.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPLAP.2021.115005

International Journal of Public Law and Policy, 2021 Vol.7 No.1, pp.1 - 13

Received: 14 May 2020
Accepted: 16 Jun 2020
Published online: 13 May 2021 *

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