“The war in Ukraine is like a powerful earthquake that will have ripple effects throughout the global economy, especially in poor countries”.  That’s how IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva described the impact of the war on the world economy.  Nobody can be sure the magnitude of this quake but even on the most optimistic view, it is going to damage significantly the economies and livelihoods of not just the people of Ukraine and Russia, but also the rest of the 7bn people globally.  And it is happening just as the world economy was supposedly recovering from the plunge in output, incomes and living standards suffered from COVID pandemic slump in 2020 – which was the widest and deepest global contraction (if relatively short) in over 100 years.

But let us start with Ukraine itself.  Already 3m people have fled the country from the bombs and destruction of their homes…