Zhang Dengjun, Sogn-Grundvåg Geir
Business School, University of Stavanger, N-4036, Stavanger, Norway.
Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research, Norway.
Econ Anal Policy. 2022 Jun;74:337-349. doi: 10.1016/j.eap.2022.03.005. Epub 2022 Mar 8.
The COVID-19 pandemic decreases firm revenue and raises the demand for liquidity, resulting in increased financial stress for firms throughout the world. In attempts to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, governments have established a range of credit programs to provide credit to firms with poor liquidity. However, the efficacy of those relief programs has been low, and the relief funds do not reach the businesses most in need of liquidity injection, indicating a need to identify firms that are the most vulnerable during the crisis. We first combine the standard Enterprises Surveys and the follow-up surveys on the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample firms are used to test how credit constraint conditions and firm characteristics affect the severity of the COVID-19 impact on firm performance. Our empirical results indicate that small firms and firms with limited access to finance are more likely to be severely affected by the crisis. Firms with foreign ownership and that are located in small cities are less at-risk. Compared to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, COVID-19 less severely affects credit-constrained firms and foreign-owned firms and more severely affects small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
新冠疫情降低了企业收入，增加了对流动性的需求，给全球企业带来了更大的财务压力。为了减轻新冠危机的影响，各国政府设立了一系列信贷项目，为流动性较差的企业提供信贷。然而，这些救助项目的效果不佳，救助资金并未惠及最需要流动性注入的企业，这表明有必要识别出危机期间最脆弱的企业。我们首先将标准企业调查与关于新冠疫情经济后果的后续调查相结合。样本企业用于检验信贷约束条件和企业特征如何影响新冠疫情对企业绩效影响的严重程度。我们的实证结果表明，小企业以及获得融资机会有限的企业更有可能受到危机的严重影响。外资企业和位于小城市的企业风险较低。与2008年全球金融危机相比，新冠疫情对信贷约束型企业和外资企业的影响较小，对中小企业的影响则更为严重。
