The financial crisis triggered by Covid-19 is exceptional on all measures. What makes it even more so is its timing with respect to what central banks can do.
Due to the protracted nature of the 2008 global financial crisis, the world’s most powerful money-printing institutions were already at the limits of unconventional policy when this crisis struck. That has prompted a debate about what central banks can do to help.
As a result, a lot of outside-the-box thinking that might have been seen as hare-brained or extreme has gained legitimacy. This includes the idea that some form of digital stimulus or central bank digital currency (CBDC) could help central banks push further beyond the boundaries of conventional policy.