Comeback Trail

01 Sep 2020

What history can teach us about navigating the economy’s post-COVID recovery

Re: Nancy F. Koehn (James E. Robison Professor of Business Administration); David A. Moss (Paul Whiton Cherington Professor of Business Administration); Debora L. Spar (Jaime and Josefina Chua Tiampo Professor of Business Administration Senior Associate Dean, Harvard Business School Online)

Topics: History-Business History Economics-Financial Crisis Management-Crisis Management

01 Sep 2020

Comeback Trail

What history can teach us about navigating the economy’s post-COVID recovery

Topics: History-Business History Economics-Financial Crisis Management-Crisis Management

01 Sep 2020

Comeback Trail

What history can teach us about navigating the economy’s post-COVID recovery

Topics: History-Business History Economics-Financial Crisis Management-Crisis Management

Edited by Dan Morrell; illustrations by David Plunkert

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the United States’ current recession began in February, just as the first impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic began to slow consumer spending and spur unemployment. And while parts of the economy are rebounding in fits and starts, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in July that the pandemic’s impact would last a decade and cost the US economy $16 trillion.

To better understand how to approach an economic recovery of this scale, we asked three HBS professors—David Moss, Nancy Koehn, and Debora Spar—to weigh in on what advice history can offer as we navigate the current economic crisis.