The COVID‐19 pandemic and the subsequent measures of social distancing are having a huge impact on the economy. Many businesses were asked to close down temporarily or are facing serious operational challenges, while others are experiencing a sharp increase in the demand for their services. Many individuals have lost work, either because jobs closed down temporarily or permanently or because they present health risks to which the individuals are vulnerable. Schools closed down and many parents are shouldering the entirety of the childcare and educational needs of their children. The economy came to a sudden standstill and the magnitude of the recession that is upon us is now becoming evident. The effects of this unprecedented shock are very heterogeneous across individuals and interact with many pre‐existing vulnerabilities across race and class. In the meantime, governments around the world have been searching for the best tools to protect their citizens and businesses during the period of rapid contagion and for ways of restarting the economy once the health risk starts to subside.

In an attempt to understand the contours of this crisis and to inform policy, many economists have been using the tools at their disposal to document what is happening and understand how best to respond to the immense challenges facing people, firms and governments. Given the critical importance of providing up‐to‐date evidence to inform the academic and policy debate, Fiscal Studies is publishing in this issue a symposium of invited papers on COVID‐related research, covering a range of issues. With one exception, the work focuses on the UK case, and many of the projects stem from ongoing research by staff at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The symposium starts by bringing out dimensions of ethnic and other inequalities in the effects of this crisis, in papers by Lucinda Platt and Ross Warwick and by Richard Blundell, Monica Costa Dias, Robert Joyce and Xiaowei Xu. The paper by Cathal O'Donoghue, Denisa M. Sologon, Iryna Kyzyma and John McHale shows how the COVID‐19 pandemic is affecting the gross incomes of families in Ireland and the extent to which fiscal policy is offering insurance against this shock. The next two papers turn attention to the health crisis. The first, by James Banks, Heidi Karjalainen and Carol Propper, builds on previous research to discuss the potential long‐term consequences of this recession for health outcomes and how these may vary with socio‐economic and demographic characteristics. The second, by Carol Propper, George Stoye and Ben Zaranko, considers the huge challenges facing the National Health Service in the UK and the potential implications of this crisis for the delivery of healthcare in the short and medium term.

The social distancing measures have had severe consequences not only for the incomes of families, but also for the goods and services that are available in the market and their desirability. This has altered the consumption bundle of families and the value of businesses in different sectors of economic activity. A paper by Richard Blundell, Rachel Griffith, Peter Levell and Martin O'Connell discusses the implications of this crisis for the measurement of the Consumer Prices Index. The share prices of firms can be used to identify the sectors that are struggling the most, as noted in the paper by Rachel Griffith, Peter Levell and Rebekah Stroud.

The road ahead is treacherous and governments will be looking into ways of promoting economic recovery while keeping infection rates low and protecting those who have lost their jobs or are unable to return to work under the current health risks. The final paper in the symposium, by Monica Costa Dias, Robert Joyce, Fabien Postel‐Vinay and Xiaowei Xu, discusses the challenges of this crisis for labour market policy.

COVID-19大流行以及随后的社会疏远措施对经济产生了巨大影响。许多企业被要求暂时关闭或面临严重的运营挑战，而其他企业的服务需求却急剧增加。许多人失去工作，要么是因为工作暂时或永久性关闭，要么是因为这些工作带来了个人易受伤害的健康风险。学校关闭，许多父母承担着孩子的全部托儿和教育需求。经济突然停滞不前，而衰退的严重性现在正变得明显。这种前所未有的冲击的影响在各个人之间是非常不同的，并且与种族和阶级之间许多先前存在的漏洞相互作用。

为了理解这场危机的轮廓并为政策提供信息，许多经济学家一直在使用可利用的工具来记录正在发生的事情，并了解如何最好地应对人员，企业和政府面临的巨大挑战。鉴于提供最新证据来为学术和政策辩论提供信息至关重要，因此，《财政研究》将在本期中发布有关COVID相关研究的邀请论文研讨会，涵盖一系列问题。除了一个例外，这项工作着重于英国案例，许多项目都来自财政研究所的正在进行的研究。

研讨会的开始是在卢辛达·普拉特（Lucinda Platt）和罗斯·沃威克（Ross Warwick）以及理查德·布隆德尔（Richard Blundell），莫妮卡·科斯塔·迪亚斯（Monica Costa Dias），罗伯特·乔伊斯（Robert Joyce）和徐小伟（Xiaowei Xu）的论文中，揭示了在这场危机的影响中种族和其他不平等的程度。Cathal O'Donoghue，Denisa M.Sologon，Iryna Kyzyma和John McHale的论文显示了COVID-19大流行如何影响爱尔兰家庭的总收入，以及财政政策在多大程度上为抵御这种冲击提供了保障。接下来的两篇论文将注意力转移到健康危机上。詹姆斯·班克斯（James Banks），海蒂·卡尔亚莱宁（Heidi Karjalainen）和卡罗尔·普珀（Carol Propper）的第一篇论文以先前的研究为基础，讨论了经济衰退对健康结果的潜在长期后果，以及这些后果如何随社会经济和人口特征而变化。第二个是Carol Propper，George Stoye和Ben Zaranko，

社会疏离措施不仅对家庭收入，而且对市场上可获得的商品和服务及其可取性都产生了严重后果。这改变了家庭的消费束和经济活动不同部门中企业的价值。理查德·布伦德尔（Richard Blundell），瑞秋·格里菲斯（Rachel Griffith），彼得·Levell和马丁·奥康奈尔（Martin O'Connell）的论文讨论了这场危机对衡量消费者价格指数的影响。正如雷切尔·格里菲斯（Rachel Griffith），彼得·Levell（Peter Levell）和丽贝卡·斯特劳德（Rebekah Stroud）在论文中指出的那样，公司的股价可以用来确定最挣扎的行业。

前进的道路险恶，各国政府将研究如何促进经济复苏，同时保持较低的感染率，并保护在当前健康风险下失去工作或无法重返工作岗位的人们。研讨会的最后一篇论文由Monica Costa Dias，Robert Joyce，Fabien Postel-Vinay和Xuxiaowei徐讨论了这场危机对劳动力市场政策的挑战。