COVID-19 financial support to small businesses in Switzerland: evaluation and outlook

Springer Science and Business Media LLC - 2020
Marius Brülhart1, Rafael Lalive1, Tobias Lehmann1, Michael Siegenthaler2
1Department of Economics, HEC Lausanne, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
2Labour Market Section, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Tóm tắt

AbstractWe analyse small businesses’ recourse to public support measures during the COVID-19 crisis using a survey of 1011 self-employed workers and small business owners in Switzerland. We find that “objective” measures of lockdown affectedness and economic structure explain fairly well how businesses availed of support measures to cover labour costs. Recourse to government-backed corona loans, however, appears to be driven to a larger extent by behavioural idiosyncrasies across firms. Specifically, previously indebted businesses took out corona loans more readily than those who had been debt-free before the pandemic. Since uptake is not well in line with firm fundamentals, we propose making loan repayments contingent on future profits. This will more effectively target and sustain businesses that are in trouble today but would be viable in the absence COVID-19.

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