Covid-19 and the Bazooka of the Belgian Financial Sector: Where Did It Go Wrong?

Covid-19 has hit health systems and economies all over the world. To weather this crisis, the financial sector encompassing Febelfin, the National Bank of Belgium and the minister of finance installed a financial bazooka of €50 billion on March 22, 2020. In contrast to some other countries such as Switzerland, this bazooka did not work out as expected. In this short note, we make an evaluation and go deeper into potential drivers behind this failure. We conclude by making some alternative suggestions.