Norwegian and U.S. Policies Alleviate Business Vulnerability Due to the Covid-19 Shock Equally Well

Abstract

We thank the editor, Bill Gentry, for extremely helpful comments and suggestions. Financial support from the Research Council of Norway, grants number 283322 and 316475, is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Tiril Eid Barland for research assistance and Statistics Norway for rapid data delivery. Any remaining errors and inconsistencies are our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Financing firms in hibernation during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Others have suggested shield packages aimed at supporting firms, especially those in financial distress (Bénassy-Quéré et al, 2020). Additional proposals include the provision of support to wage payments (Alstadsaeter et al, 2020), the need for "helicopter money" (Cukierman, 2020), restricting financial institution's voluntary pay-outs , equity-like cash flow injec- tions (Boot et al, 2020), a liquidity lifeline to cash-strapped firms , evergreening loans (Brunnermeier and Krishnamurthy, 2020), and preserving bank capital (Acharya and Steffen, 2020). As economic hardships caused by the pandemic have persisted over several months, economists have analyzed alternative lockdown strategies (Abel and Panageas, 2020), while emphasizing the need for liquidity to keep flowing to firms (Button et al, 2020).…”

SMEs and exogenous shocks: A conceptual literature review and forward research agenda

“…We take a firm-level perspective, surveying core issues of how shocks and crises impact small businesses and the spectrum of business responses, limiting our parameters to firm-level analyses during times of shock. Related studies of business and exogenous shocks from a government or societal perspective such as those on government responses, fiscal and/or industrial policies and business governance in areas of limited statehood (Alstadsæter et al, 2020; Gertler et al, 2012; van Hooren et al, 2014; Risse, 2011; Tanzi, 1986) are beyond our article’s scope. Slower-burning challenges like climate change are also excluded – although climate-induced exogenous shocks such as hurricanes and floods are addressed.…”

How well-targeted are payroll tax cuts as a response to COVID-19? evidence from China

“…Our work contributes to several strands in the evolving literature on governmental responses to COVID-19. The first comprises studies using pre-2020 administrative data to project the distribution of fiscal relief (Alstadsæter et al, 2020 ; Ganong et al, 2020 ; Bachas et al, 2020 ). A second strand analyzes various forms of job retention subsidies (Bartik et al, 2020 ; Bennedsen et al, 2020 ; Birinci et al, 2021 ; Chetty et al, 2020 ; Granja et al, 2020 ; Kaplan et al, 2020 ).…”