Managing crisis after financialization: reflecting on "novel" responses to COVID-19 and the 2008 financial crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic was a truly global event. The nature of the virus, combined with contemporary patterns of travel and transportation saw a rapid escalation in the scale of the challenge. State responses were also unusually global. Similarities extended beyond public health measures to a range of fiscal and monetary responses that might ordinarily be understood in more distinctively national terms. This chapter traces these economic responses, identifying similarities with lessons learned from the earlier financial crisis and the growing importance of managing global finance and asset prices. Together these trends saw states expand the use of cash payments on an unprecedented scale. As the crisis receded, older economic norms of austerity, and global differentiation, re-emerged. Yet, the success of the pandemic response raises ongoing questions for economic orthodoxy and highlight the growing use of new policy tools.