Business resilience: Lessons from government responses to the global COVID-19 crisis

Abstract

This study explores the survival of firms across countries, and what factors contribute to their ability to withstand large-scale exogenous shocks, focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic. Using corporate default risk as a measure of non-resilience, our empirical results from 97 countries reveal that stringent COVID-19 containment measures created a significant resilience test for businesses worldwide. Further tests suggest that cash holdings, knowledge assets, international sales, and access to foreign capital markets are crucial for global businesses to pull through exogenous shocks. Country-level institutional qualities also play an essential role in shaping business resilience during a crisis. Our study is the first to comprehensively analyze the drivers of business resilience across diverse countries using the COVID-19 outbreak as a major global crisis, providing a nuanced understanding of this topic in international business.