Firms around the World during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This study uses the COVID-19 follow-up surveys to the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys (ES) to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on firms around the world. The surveyed countries are selected from those in which the regular ES was recently conducted. This study finds that the pandemic’s impact has been swift, large, and heterogeneous. The pandemic’s negative effects on exports are greater than those on domestic sales and are also greater for foreign-owned firms that rely more on global value chains. The pandemic’s effects are very heterogeneous across countries and sectors.