Firm-Level Exposure to Epidemic Diseases: Covid-19, SARS, and H1N1

Tarek Hassan, Stephan Hollander (), Laurence van Lent () and Ahmed Tahoun ()
Additional contact information
Stephan Hollander: Tilburg University
Laurence van Lent: Frankfurt School of Finance and Management
Ahmed Tahoun: London Business School

No inetwp119, Working Papers Series from Institute for New Economic Thinking

Abstract: Using tools described in our earlier work (Hassan et al., 2019, 2020), we develop text- based measures of the costs, benefits, and risks listed firms in the US and over 80 other countries associate with the spread of Covid-19 and other epidemic diseases. We identify which firms expect to gain or lose from an epidemic disease and which are most affected by the associated uncertainty as a disease spreads in a region or around the world. As Covid-19 spreads globally in the first quarter of 2020, we find that firms’ primary concerns relate to the collapse of demand, increased uncertainty, and disruption in supply chains. Other important concerns relate to capacity reductions, closures, and employee welfare. By contrast, financing concerns are mentioned relatively rarely. We also identify some firms that foresee opportunities in new or disrupted markets due to the spread of the disease. Finally, we find some evidence that firms that have experience with SARS or H1N1 have more positive expectations about their ability to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.

Keywords: Epidemic diseases; pandemic; exposure; virus; firms; uncertainty; sentiment; ma- chine learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 G15 I15 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (197)

Published

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/WP_119-Tahoun-et-al-Covid.pdf (application/pdf)
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3593895 First version, 2020 (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Firm-Level Exposure to Epidemic Diseases: Covid-19, SARS, and H1N1 (2020)
Working Paper: Firm-Level Exposure to Epidemic Diseases: Covid-19, SARS, and H1N1 (2020)
Working Paper: Firm-Level Exposure to Epidemic Diseases: COVID-19, SARS, and H1N1 (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:thk:wpaper:inetwp119

DOI: 10.36687/inetwp119

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers Series from Institute for New Economic Thinking Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Pia Malaney ().