TY - UNPB
T1 - Did State-owned Enterprises Do Better during COVID-19?
T2 - Evidence from a Survey of 1,182 Company Executives in China (CEIBS Working Paper, No. 041/2020/ECO, 2020)
AU - Wu, Ho-Wei
AU - Xu, Bin
PY - 2020/8
Y1 - 2020/8
N2 - COVID-19’s sudden outbreak and the subsequent lockdown imposed by the government substantially changed China’s business environment. In a survey of 1,182 company executives in China, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reported less business reductions under COVID-19. This paper examines if SOEs’ superior performance was resulted from government support rather than innate ability to cope with COVID-19. While firm-level government support is unobservable, the outbreak saw companies responding with various salary and personnel measures, which give us information to construct a proxy for the government-support effect. After controlling for the government-support effect, we find that SOEs performed significantly worse in the pandemic period.
AB - COVID-19’s sudden outbreak and the subsequent lockdown imposed by the government substantially changed China’s business environment. In a survey of 1,182 company executives in China, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reported less business reductions under COVID-19. This paper examines if SOEs’ superior performance was resulted from government support rather than innate ability to cope with COVID-19. While firm-level government support is unobservable, the outbreak saw companies responding with various salary and personnel measures, which give us information to construct a proxy for the government-support effect. After controlling for the government-support effect, we find that SOEs performed significantly worse in the pandemic period.
KW - Covid-19
KW - State-owned enterprises
KW - Firm characteristics
KW - China
KW - Survey data
M3 - Working paper
BT - Did State-owned Enterprises Do Better during COVID-19?
ER -