Locked down by inequality: Older people and the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper develops the argument that post-COVID-19 recovery strategies need to focus on building back fairer cities and communities, and that this requires a strong embedding of 'age-friendly' principles to support marginalised groups of older people, especially those living in deprived urban neighbourhoods, trapped in poor quality housing. It shows that older people living in such areas are likely to experience a 'double lockdown' as a result of restrictions imposed by social distancing combined with the intensification of social and spatial inequalities. This argument is presented as follows: first, the paper examines the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on older people, highlighting how the pandemic is both creating new and reinforcing existing inequalities in ageing along the lines of gender, class, ethnicity, race, ability and sexuality. Second, the paper explores the role of spatial inequalities in the context of COVID-19, highlighting how the pandemic is having a disproportionate impact on deprived urban areas already affected by cuts to public services, the loss of social infrastructure and pressures on the voluntary sector. Finally, the paper examines how interrelated social inequalities at both the individual and spatial level are affecting the lives of older people living in deprived urban neighbourhoods during the pandemic. The paper concludes by developing six principles for 'age-friendly' community recovery planning aimed at maintaining and improving the quality of life and wellbeing of older residents in the post-pandemic city.

Lessons for the Age of Consequences: COVID-19 and the Macroeconomy

Comparative empirical evidence for 22 OECD countries shows that country differences in cumulative mortality impacts of SARS-CoV-2 are caused by weaknesses in public health competences, pre-existing variances in structural socio-economic and public health vulnerabilities, and the presence of fiscal constraints. Remarkably, the (fiscally non-constrained) U.S. and the U.K. stand out, as they experience mortality outcomes similar to those of fiscally-constrained countries. High COVID19 mortality in the U.S. and the U.K. is due to pre-existing socio-economic and public health vulnerabilities, created by the following macroeconomic policy errors: (a) a deadly emphasis on fiscal austerity (which diminished public health capacities, damaged public health and deepened inequalities);(b) an obsessive belief in a trade-off between ‘efficiency' and ‘equity', which is mostly used to justify extreme inequality;(c) a complicit endorsement by mainstream macro of the unchecked power over monetary and fiscal policy-making of global finance and the rentier class;and (d) an unhealthy aversion to raising taxes, which deceives the public about the necessity to raise taxes to counter the excessive liquidity preference of the rentiers and to realign the interests of finance and of the real economy. The paper concludes by outlining a few lessons for a saner macroeconomics.

The European social model and the patchwork of rules

This chapter explores the notion of the European Social Model (ESM) and examines the EU-level social policy reforms that have taken place since the 1950s. ESM is taken to be distinct from but intimately related to the web and patchwork of rules explored in this volume. After sketching out the development of ESM since the 1950s, up to and including its near-death experience in the context of the Great Recession and the EU's turn to austerity, the chapter considers the social and political consequences of the EU's lurch to austerity as well as the consequences this might have for the web and patchwork of rules. The chapter ultimately reflects on whether another ESM might be possible in the context of the EU's response to the economic and social consequences following the onset of COVID-19, particularly in the context of the EU's Next Generation EU programme whereby the EU provides financial assistance directly to the regions worst affected by the pandemic. © 2023 by Emerald Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.

Fiscal deficits and the socioeconomic consequences of rebalancing: Insights from a TVP‐VAR with stochastic volatility

This article connects two salient economic features: (i) Fiscal shocks have asymmetric effects across business cycle phases (Gechert, Horn, & Paetz, 2019);(ii) the unemployment‐output trade‐off is time varying and may be unstable. The intertwined dynamic behaviour of fiscal deficit shocks and the unemployment‐output trade‐off is studied in this article using a time‐varying parameter (TVP) vector autoregression (VAR) with stochastic volatility techniques applied to the analysis of data from Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States of America. We confirm the trade‐off heterogeneity across country, and its time‐varying nature across time, showing in addition its fluctuation around a long‐run reference value. We document significant short‐run impacts of fiscal shocks on the unemployment‐output trade‐off which, based on the experience of the Global Financial Crisis, becomes larger in periods of economic turmoil. Policy‐wise, the rebalancing of public finances may have unexpected adverse effects on job creation if implemented during slumps, precisely when the labour market sensitivity with respect to the performance of the product market is likely to be more acute. This message is particularly relevant in the aftermath of the Covid‐19 pandemic.

Effects of intergovernmental revenue on local government draw on fiscal reserves: evidence from COVID-19 fiscal stress

This study investigates the effects of receipt and anticipation of intergovernmental revenues on local governments draw on accumulated fiscal reserves to cushion the impacts of COVID-19-related fiscal stress. Several studies have been conducted on determinants of fiscal reserves accumulation. However, little is known about the determinants of government draw on fiscal reserves, beyond revenue shortfall, in times of fiscal stress. Dwelling on the premise that government's draw on fiscal reserves is influenced by factors beyond revenue shortfall and controlling for the effects of revenue shortfalls and other factors, we analysed local government survey data to determine the effects of intergovernmental revenue on government draw on fiscal reserves. Results show that draw on fiscal reserves is significantly constrained by percent of FY 2020 revenue received from federal and state governments, but significantly and positively inluenced by revenue losses and percent of FY 2021 revenue anticipated from federal government.

The Neoliberal State and Management of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Nigeria

This study examines how neoliberalism affected the management of Covid-19 in Nigeria. As a result of its emphasis on privatisation and austerity, neoliberalism discouraged social investment programmes and provisioning. The privatisation of Nigeria's health sector severely stifled health financing, which led to the collapse of public health institutions and the proliferation of private and informal health delivery systems. It limited universal access to quality healthcare, worsened the health conditions of poor Nigerians and rendered the health sector incapable of managing emergency health situations, such as Covid-19. The absence of well-coordinated social investment programmes to cushion the effects of lockdown widened social inequality and misery, making it impossible for citizens in the informal economy to adhere to the Covid-19 guidelines. The state responded with repression to enforce the rules. This study recommends overhauling the Nigerian state and its political economy as a condition for reducing citizen's vulnerability to a pandemic.

Financial-Economic Environment for the Royal Spanish Athletics Federation after Covid19

The purpose of this paper is to show a forecast of the economicfinancial environment for the Royal Spanish Athletics Federation (RFEA) after COVID19 based on the Austrian Economics approach. To do so, we achieve several economic-financial scenarios using a forecast of RFEA revenues with the AAA version of the Exponential Triple Smoothing (ETS) algorithm and interpret the results based on the Austrian Economics approach with information on the Spanish economic situation and the budget of the National Sports Council (CSD) as the main source of funding. The results show that, although national federations, such as the RFEA, have sufficient net worth to absorb the negative results and responsible behavior is not rewarded in these public or semi-public bodies, the RFEA should try to adapt its expenditures to the new level of expected income to avoid major financial problems in the future. The result of the work can serve as a starting point for a reflection on the future of the RFEA and any other Sports Federation.

Conservative government penal policy 2015-2021: Austerity, outsourcing and punishment redux?

This book interrogates Conservative government penal policy for adult and young adult offenders in England and Wales between 2015 and 2021. Government penal policy is shown to have been often ineffective and costly, and to have revived efforts to push the system towards a disastrous combination of austerity, outsourcing and punishment that has exacerbated the penal crisis. This investigation has meant touching on topical debates dealing with the impact of resource scarcity on offenders' experiences of the penal system, the impact of an increasing emphasis on punishment on offenders' sense of justice and fairness, the balance struck between infection control and offender welfare during the government handling of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and why successive Conservative governments have intransigently pursued a penal policy that has proved crisis-exacerbating. The overall conclusion reached is that penal policy is too important to be left to governments alone and needs to be recalibrated by a one-off inquiry, complemented by an on-going advisory body capable of requiring governments to 'explain or change'. The book is distinctive in that it provides a critical review of penal policy change, whist combining this with insights derived from the sociological analysis of penal trends. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

COVID crisis, austerity and the ‘Left Behind' city: Exploring poverty and destitution in Stoke-on-Trent

Whilst the COVID-19 pandemic and ‘cost of living' crisis revealed and intensified the United Kingdom's (UK) socio-spatial inequalities, these crises did not emerge into a vacuum. Long-term trends of deindustrialisation and austerity have meant many places particularly the former industrial areas across the North and Midlands have been ‘left behind'. The current crises have exposed the structural fault-lines created by austerity across 2010/20 especially comprising significant cuts to welfare and local government services, with the outcome being sizable parts of the UK's post-industrial landscape experiencing poverty and destitution. In this paper, we focus upon deindustrialised Stoke-on-Trent in the North Midlands of England. Enduring long-term deindustrialisation and suffering from austerity, the article draws on qualitative and quantitative data to outline how the city contains a panoply of embedded structural problems including low-paid jobs, welfare retrenchment, poverty and destitution. Given it is a possibility that austerity will be reimposed after the next UK general election in December 2024, the paper concludes by briefly discussing the implications of these structural problems for UK government policy, indicating the urgent need for alternative policies to adequately address structural issues in places like Stoke. © The Author(s) 2023.

From austerity neoliberalism in Europe to social reconstruction in Spain: Proposals for constitutional reforms

More than a decade after the start of the eurozone crisis, the coronavirus in Spain has brought back the idea of constitutional reform in social rights. The paradigm shift that occurred with the arrival of the pandemic is hardly questionable. From the austerity promoted by European institutions and assumed by national authorities in the face of the 2008 financial crisis, we have recently moved on to boosting public investment and social spending in both spheres of governance. This paper comparatively analyses the two scenarios to demonstrate that economic policy is a matter of ideology. Moreover, austerity is only one of many possible responses to economic downturns. And to preserve our welfare state in the face of future austerity trends, this paper argues strongly in favour of a series of constitutional reforms in Spain to guarantee the effectiveness of social rights.

COVID Keynesianism: locating inequality in the Anglo-American crisis response

COVID Keynesianism evaluates the USA and UK's economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic and compares it to the previous iterations of the Anglo-American policy response template. The analysis details the morbid character of neoliberal state intervention by tracing the distributional routes of monetary and fiscal measures into global corporations and across the domestic economy. The comparative findings show the degree to which emergency economic relief measures, despite their size and early success, have amplified the fault lines of inequality. The argument is that monetary flows generated windfall wealth gains for the already wealthy, while fiscal flows provided temporary gains and provisions for those on low-incomes and in deprived regions. Neoliberal efforts to protect wealth-holdings are discussed with reference to the structural conditions that generate permanent crises.

Psycho-Social Approaches to the Covid-19 Pandemic: Change, Crisis and Trauma

Fabrication of Metallic Pressure Vessels delivers comprehensive coverage of the various This book explores how meaning-making during the COVID-19 pandemic, and specifically during the period of the April 2020 lockdowns, may be derived from shared lived experience among participants, residing in diverse geographical regions. This study conducted 46 in-depth interviews with Greek participants residing in 13 district countries and 23 cities around the globe and argues that meaning making of the pandemic derives from shared lived experiences of radical change and everyday transformations, fearful as well as well as hopeful perceptions of crisis and trauma emerging through loss of life before the pandemic. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Aged spaces in an era of austerity: Food bank use by older people

In the context of austerity and the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper draws on 17 interviews conducted with frontline staff and volunteers to explore the use of food banks by older people in a highly deprived North-West borough. Despite high levels of poverty amongst this age group, older people are infrequent users of food banks and it is their absence from these spaces, as opposed to their use of and experiences within food banks, that has often gained attention. By foregrounding this age group, this paper highlights different circumstances of use, generational dynamics involving heightened feelings of shame, and how food banks function as social spaces for older people. In doing so, this paper adds to literature in gerontology around spaces of ageing, as well as research on food banks, by highlighting how experiences in these spaces are differentiated by age. This paper advances discussions around the impact of austerity on the everyday lives of older people. Due to the timing of this research, it also gives insight into how older people and informal social spaces have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The information, practices and views in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). © 2023 The Author. Area published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers).

Following the Science: The UK Government's Response to "Herd Immunity” During Early COVID-19

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the importance and impact of scientific advice on the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a subject worthy of more than one book, so the topic is confined to the question of "herd immunity” or "mitigation”: a strategy considered in the United Kingdom (UK) during the early appearance of the virus in the first months of 2020. This chapter also considers definitions of science and problems within science itself and how these have impacted considerations of herd immunity during the first months of the pandemic. The relationships between the scientists who have advised the government, the politicians involved, and the impact this has had on the scientific advice given and implemented are discussed, as are the problems regarding the concept of "following the science”. The practise of herd immunity is outlined, as are attitudes to these in the UK in the first quarter of 2020. Finally, the position of science and scientists in relation to the responses to COVID-19 is considered in the broader political and ideological context of 21st century Britain. © 2023 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved.

Universal basic income: An idea whose time has come or just another mechanism to grease the wheels of capitalism?

Universal basic income (UBI) is a system where everyone in a community is given a regular fixed amount of money from government intended to meet basic needs and free from any conditionality. Such a system is cheap and easy to administer as there is no means testing or checks on conditionality. There are a growing number of trials across the world and increasing support for such a scheme in the UK. A decade of austerity policies in the UK followed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the views of some that UBI would not only address the issue of poverty and low-paid work but would serve as a response to growing automation in the workplace. It might also increase the bargaining power of workers who would be less worried about losing their job if they had the cushion of UBI.

The Covid-19 Crisis: Global Competitive (Geo)Politics, Labour Regimes and the Case of Greece

The Covid-19 pandemic, seen in the form of a historical continuum of crises in the Euro-Atlantic core after the global financial crisis and the Eurozone crisis, has undermined the fundamentals of neo-ordo-liberal globalisation and the so-called "4th industrial revolution”. Whilst underlining the relative decline of the USA and, more broadly, the Euro-Atlantic economies, the measures undertaken by the states of the global North for dealing with the pandemic increase global (geo) political competition. Further, these measures only marginally protect labour conditions despite immense injections of cash into economy. As a result of these measures, public debt has increased, especially in Greece. This article outlines the implications of the pandemic upon global (geo)politics and labour regimes and pays particular attention to the case of Greece, the weakest economy in the Eurozone. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Caring Democracy Now: Neighborhood Support Networks in the Wake of the 15-M

In 2011 the Indignados traced a line of flight from austerity policies. They invented unprecedented spaces for participation, re-imagined Spanish democracy and turned their attention to forms of life as spaces for political transformation. Their practices enacted a collective sensitivity that challenged the regime of impotence blocking their lives. The global financial crisis was denying them a future, and their ability to think and act together. Ten years later, while the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the world's normal course, self-organizing neighbours updated the Indignados' sensibility and methods. This article analyses the neighborhood support networks created by the Mutual Aid Groups (GAM) in A Coruña, Spain, during the lockdown in March 2020. As the government urged people to stay at home and obey the public health directives, the GAM took care of vulnerable life and democracy, threatened today by new authoritarian drives. From the standpoint of the ethics of care and an interest in experimental social movements, we discuss the power of a caring democracy, which sustains life and renews the democratic turn of the 15-M.

Social Security, Exponential Inequalities, and Covid-19: How Welfare Reform in the UK Left Larger Families Exposed to the Scarring Effects of the Pandemic

Covid-19 has put social security systems under immense pressure. Governments saw demand for social security rise dramatically whilst attempting to support those whose employment had temporarily stopped once severe economic restrictions were put in place. Drawing on a range of evidence (including original interviews), this chapter focuses on the experience of larger families (households with three or more children) during the pandemic as a way of illuminating how these pandemic-induced policy responses often failed to reach those groups who have been subject to austerity measures over the previous decade. We explore this in three ways. First, we unpack how the government's response to Covid-19 left larger families in a precarious position. Secondly, we situate the experience of larger families in the context of a wider set of reforms to social security-such as the benefit cap, the two-child limit, and the benefits freeze-which have already pushed even more larger families into poverty over the last decade. The final section of the chapter draws out how these policy decisions exacerbate inequalities between groups, while alluding to implications for protected characteristics as enshrined in the Equality Act 2010. This analysis not only illuminates how the pandemic has increased gender and ethnic inequalities but also suggests that the degree to which the pandemic was inequality-generating is rooted in policy decisions made before the pandemic even began. Avoiding exponential inequalities in response to future crises requires that policies-and the discourses which surround them-are sensitive to the potential for other kinds of societal shock. © The several contributors 2022. All rights reserved.

Debt in the time of COVID-19: creditor choice and the failures of sovereign debt governance

While countries in the Global North have staved off the worst economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic through massive stimulus spending, this option has been unavailable to many low- and middle-income countries, largely because high debt burdens have constrained fiscal spending. Nevertheless, almost no debt relief has materialized. The ad hoc approach to sovereign debt governance that emerged out of the debt crises of the 1980s helps explain why. It established an absolute commitment to upholding the right of private creditors to choose whether to participate in debt restructurings that has helped obstruct all significant sovereign debt governance reforms, preventing meaningful debt relief even in the context of the worst humanitarian crisis since the Great Depression. (English) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Resumen Deuda en tiempos del COVID-19: opciones de acreedores y fallos en la gestión de la deuda soberana. Area Development and Policy. Mientras que los países del hemisferio norte han evitado los peores efectos económicos y sanitarios de la pandemia mediante enormes gastos en incentivos, esta opción no ha estado disponible en muchos países de ingresos bajos y medios, en gran parte debido a que las elevadas cargas de la deuda han limitado el gasto fiscal. Sin embargo, no se ha materializado casi ningún alivio de la deuda. El enfoque especial para gestionar la deuda soberana que surgió de las crisis de la deuda de los ochenta podría explicar los motivos: un compromiso absoluto para apoyar el derecho de los acreedores privados a elegir si quieren participar en la reestructuración de la deuda ha permitido obstruir todas las reformas significativas de la gestión de la deuda soberana, impidiendo un importante alivio de la carga de deuda incluso en el contexto de la peor crisis humanitaria desde la Gran Depresión. (Spanish) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Аннотация Долг во времена COVID-19: выбор кредитора и неудачи в управлении суверенным долгом. Area Development and Policy. В то время как страны Глобального Севера предотвратили наихудшие последствия пандемии для экономики и здоровья населения благодаря масштабным расходам, этот вариант был недоступен для многих стран с низким и средним уровнем дохода, в основном потому, что высокое долговое бремя ограничивало бюджетные расходы. Тем не менее, почти никакого облегчения долгового бремени не произошло. Специальный подход к управлению суверенным долгом, возникший в результате долговых кризисов 1980-х годов, помогает объяснить, почему: абсолютная приверженность соблюдению права частных кредиторов выбирать, участвовать ли в реструктуризации долга, препятствовала сколь либо значительным реформам в области управления суверенным долгом, предотвратив облегчение долгового бремени даже в контексте худшего гуманитарного кризиса со времен Великой депрессии. (Russian) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] 摘要 新冠肺炎时期的债务: 债权人选择与主权债务治理的失败. Area Development and Policy. 虽然全球发展中国家通过大规模刺激支出避免了疫情对经济和健康造成的严重影响, 但是这种行为对许多中低收入国家来说是不可用的, 主要原因是高额债务负担限制了财政支出。然而, 几乎没有实现任何债务减免。20 世纪80 年代的债务危机中出现的主权债务治理的特别方法有助于解释原因: 对维护私人债权人选择是否参与债务重组权利的绝对承诺, 阻碍了所有重大的主权债务治理改革, 即使在大萧条以来最严重的人道主义危机背景下, 也无法有效减免债务。 (Chinese) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Area Development & Policy is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Austerity and Irish Women's Writing and Culture, 1980–2020

Even now, following Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, amidst the current cost of living crisis, it is unclear whether austerity measures will once again come into play. [...]the collection Austerity and Irish Women's Writing and Culture, 1980-2020, edited by Deirdre Flynn and Ciara L. Murphy, is a timely and important contribution to Irish studies. [...]as Flynn and Murphy's introduction indicates, not only are already meagre state supports cut in times of crisis, but any attempts at improving the social standing of marginalized groups are abandoned too. LIP's collaborative approach challenged the idea of the lone male genius Irish writer, and it was decidedly underfunded, leading to claims of it being an "amateur endeavour" compared to the more established all-male Field Day company's pamphlets. [...]they could even be considered intersectional feminists due to their focus on the connection between conflict, class, and gender.