How “pent-up demand” could drive a V-shaped economic recovery

“Pent-up demand” is usually a myth. But not this time. The Covid lockdown has created genuine pent-up demand, says Merryn Somerset Webb. That’s now being released.

Bournemouth beach © GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images
People want to get out © Getty
(Image credit: Bournemouth beach © GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images)

Last Thursday, thousands of people descended on Bournemouth beach – a popular spot in the south of the UK. They sunbathed close to each other, picnicked, swam, drank, played and left many tonnes of rubbish behind. Local authorities, panicked by potential Covid-19 spreading, declared themselves “absolutely appalled” at the “irresponsible . . . actions of so many people” – and promptly issued 558 parking tickets.

However, there is another way to look at this and similarly crowded US beaches. Both may be less a disaster-in-waiting and more a sign of the pent-up demand that, in normal life, would make a V-shaped economic recovery likely in the developed world.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.