The impact of Covid-19 on US firms

Nicholas Bloom, Robert S. Fletcher and Ethan Yeh

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We use survey data on an opt-in panel of around 2,500 US small businesses to assess the impact of COVID-19. We find a significant negative sales impact that peaked in Quarter 2 of 2020, with an average loss of 29% in sales. The large negative impact masks significant heterogeneity, with over 40% of firms reporting zero or a positive impact, while almost a quarter report losses of more than 50%. These impacts also appear to be persistent, with firms reporting the largest sales drops in mid-2020 still forecasting large sales losses a year later in mid-2021. In terms of business types, we find that the smallest offline firms experienced sales drops of over 40% compared to less than 10% for the largest online firms. Finally, in terms of owners, we find female and black owners reported significantly larger drops in sales. Owners with a humanities degree also experienced far larger losses, while those with a STEM degree saw the least impact.

Keywords: Covid-19; US firms; offline firms; online firms; coronavirus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2021-08-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (38)

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/113914/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The impact of Covid-19 on US firms (2021)
Working Paper: The impact of Covid-19 on US firms (2021)
Working Paper: The Impact of COVID-19 on US Firms (2021)
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