Jason Furman, a former chair of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, is professor of the practice of economic policy at Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics

Commentators have generally offered two arguments about advanced economies’ performance since Covid-19 struck, only one of which can be true. The first is that the economic rebound has been surprisingly rapid, outpacing what forecasters expected and setting this recovery apart from the aftermath of previous recessions.