Comment: What the post-pandemic economy could look like

Changes forced by Covid-19 in areas such as government spending, work and retail are likely to continue, while the rise of Asia has been accelerated

‘The Covid-19 crisis has shown that governments can spend a lot more money without upsetting markets than most people thought.’ Picture: Getty

It is probably premature to offer an assessment of the Covid-19 pandemic’s possible consequences, not least because there may well be many more twists and turns to come. And once we defeat the coronavirus, some of the pandemic-induced changes to our lives might turn out to have been temporary. But with these caveats in mind, it is possible to begin drawing some conclusions.

First, it seems reasonably clear that once a new, highly infectious and ...