Public Banks, Public Purpose, and Early Actions in the Face of Covid-19

With the outbreak of the global Covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns, economic activity came to a grinding halt as demands for financial support in health, business, and government skyrocketed. In spring 2020 we assembled a team of experts to conduct rapid response research on how public banks worldwide responded to the Covid-19 crisis. The team employed case study methods to examine cases in the global north and south. A synthesis of our findings is presented here. We conclude that the most promising public bank responses to the crisis were those substantively guided by public purpose. Where public purpose had a more challenging relationship to public bank responses, the responses were more ambiguous and more difficult to differentiate from private banks. This rapid response study also points to promising lessons for how public banks can help to catalyse momentum to ‘build forward better’ and it raises a series of questions in need of further research.