>Also the IMF article predicts a 3% contraction for 2020 and a 5.8% growth in 2021, so by what definition is this a depression?
I wonder how they get those numbers. At least half the US economy is in shutdown right now. Two months of that is equivalent to one month of the whole economy being shutdown; to 1/12th of annual GDP lost, or around 8.3%. Add another month and its 12.5% of output lost.
They don't describe the actual algorithm used for the calculation there, but they do state they're assuming 8% of work days lost for countries experiencing a pandemic, 5% for other countries. So I suppose if they assumed 5% work days lost for US, and otherwise 2% GDP growth for the year, then they could get a number around -3%. Only 5% of total workdays lost sounds quite optimistic to me though.
I wonder how they get those numbers. At least half the US economy is in shutdown right now. Two months of that is equivalent to one month of the whole economy being shutdown; to 1/12th of annual GDP lost, or around 8.3%. Add another month and its 12.5% of output lost.