COVID-19 and SME Failures

We estimate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on business failures among small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in seventeen countries using a large representative firm-level database. We use a simple model of firm cost-minimization and measure each firm's liquidity shortfall during and after...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem
Other Authors: Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier, Penciakova, Veronika, Sander, Nick
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 2020
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
LEADER 03388nmm a2200565 u 4500
001 EB002081461
003 EBX01000000000000001221551
005 00000000000000.0
007 cr|||||||||||||||||||||
008 220928 ||| eng
020 |a 9781513557748 
100 1 |a Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem 
245 0 0 |a COVID-19 and SME Failures  |c Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Veronika Penciakova, Nick Sander 
260 |a Washington, D.C.  |b International Monetary Fund  |c 2020 
300 |a 55 pages 
651 4 |a Czech Republic 
653 |a Labour 
653 |a Labor Economics: General 
653 |a Prices 
653 |a Economic theory 
653 |a Health 
653 |a Labor 
653 |a Labor supply 
653 |a Supply and demand 
653 |a Labor economics 
653 |a Economic Theory 
653 |a Labor market 
653 |a Income economics 
653 |a Economic theory & philosophy 
653 |a Infectious & contagious diseases 
653 |a Demand and Supply of Labor: General 
653 |a Supply shocks 
653 |a Macroeconomics 
653 |a Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: General 
653 |a Diseases: Contagious 
653 |a Wages 
653 |a Health Behavior 
653 |a Agriculture: Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis 
653 |a Covid-19 
653 |a Communicable diseases 
700 1 |a Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier 
700 1 |a Penciakova, Veronika 
700 1 |a Sander, Nick 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b IMF  |a International Monetary Fund 
490 0 |a IMF Working Papers 
028 5 0 |a 10.5089/9781513557748.001 
856 4 0 |u https://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2020/207/001.2020.issue-207-en.xml?cid=49753-com-dsp-marc  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
082 0 |a 330 
520 |a We estimate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on business failures among small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in seventeen countries using a large representative firm-level database. We use a simple model of firm cost-minimization and measure each firm's liquidity shortfall during and after COVID-19. Our framework allows for a rich combination of sectoral and aggregate supply, productivity, and demand shocks. We estimate a large increase in the failure rate of SMEs under COVID-19 of nearly 9 percentage points, ab-sent government support. Accommodation & Food Services, Arts, Entertainment & Recreation, Education, and Other Services are among the most affected sectors. The jobs at risk due to COVID-19 related SME business failures represent 3.1 percent of private sector employment. Despite the large impact on business failures and employment, we estimate only moderate effects on the financial sector: the share of Non Performing Loans on bank balance sheets would increase by up to 11 percentage points, representing 0.3 percent of banks' assets and resulting in a 0.75 percentage point decline in the common equity Tier-1 capital ratio. We evaluate the cost and effectiveness of various policy interventions. The fiscal cost of an intervention that narrowly targets at risk firms can be modest (0.54% of GDP). However, at a similar level of effectiveness, non-targeted subsidies can be substantially more expensive (1.82% of GDP). Our results have important implications for the severity of the COVID-19 recession, the design of policies, and the speed of the recovery