Did state-owned enterprises do better during COVID-19?: Evidence from a survey of company executives in China

Howei Wu; Bin Xu

doi:10.1016/j.jeconbus.2021.105991

Did state-owned enterprises do better during COVID-19? Evidence from a survey of company executives in China

Howei Wu (First Author), Bin Xu (Participant Author)

Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal

Abstract

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 of coping with the pandemic. We construct a proxy for firm-level government support using firm's human resources (HR) action taken during the outbreak with firm's 2019 China revenue share as an instrument for the HR action variable. After controlling for the proxy for firm-level government support as well as other observed firm characteristics, we find SOEs in the sample performing significantly worse in the pandemic period.

Original language	English
Journal	Journal of Economics and Business
Volume	115
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconbus.2021.105991
Publication status	Published - 2021

Corresponding author email

howeiwu@ceibs.edu

Keywords

COVID-19
China
Firm characteristics
State-owned enterprises
Survey data

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SCIE
ABDC-B

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10.1016/j.jeconbus.2021.105991

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Did State-owned Enterprises Do Better during COVID-19？: Evidence from a Survey of 1,182 Company Executives in China （CEIBS Working Paper, No. 041/2020/ECO, 2020）
Wu, H-W. & Xu, B., Aug 2020.
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Cite this

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