The crisis will influence potential growth through four channels, three negative and one positive. On the negative side, it will interrupt schooling, depress public investment, and destroy global supply chains. Positively, by disrupting existing industries and activities it will open up space for innovative new entrants, through the process that the early 20th-century Austrian economist and social theorist Joseph Schumpeter referred to as "creative destruction."
– Barry Eichengreen, May 26, 2020
While there will be numerous consequences, lessons, and repercussions from the current COVID-19 crisis that are likely to feature for many decades—if not centuries—to come, one of the more immediate and more obvious consequences has been that it has acted as the accelerator of many existing trends. This has been to both the benefit and detriment of a number of different industries, and it also helps explain at least part of the reason for the seemingly large gap between Wall Street and Main Street, which we discuss in this Economics Weekly.
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Richard de Chazal, CFA is a London-based macroeconomist covering the U.S. economy and financial markets.