Pandemics, Vaccines and Corporate Earnings

Abstract

We model the contribution of a vaccine to the rebound in corporate earnings the year following the onset of COVID-19 while accounting for the role of fiscal and monetary measures. A vaccine that reopens the economy leads to a jump in earnings, while temporary fiscal and monetary support for households and businesses leads to higher short-run earnings growth before a vaccine arrives. We show that our model can be consistently estimated using revisions of value-weighted industry-level consensus earnings forecasts. We first present reduced-form evidence that security analysts account for both effects. Our model estimates then suggest that the reopening effect is as important as the short-run growth effect in explaining the rebound in corporate earnings.