Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs 2020 An OECD Scoreboard


Book Description

The 9th edition of the Scoreboard on Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs report provides data from 48 countries around the world on SME lending, alternative finance instruments and financing conditions, as well as information on policy initiatives to improve SME access to finance.




The Impact of COVID-19 on SME Financing


Book Description

The COVID-19 crisis has had a profound impact on SME access to finance. In particular, the sudden drop in revenues created acute liquidity shortages, threatening the survival of many viable businesses. The report documents an increase in demand for bank lending in the first half of 2020, and a steady supply of credit thanks to government interventions. On the other hand, other sources of finance declined, in particular early-stage equity. This paper, a special edition of Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs, focuses on the impacts of COVID-19 on SME access to finance, along with government policy responses. It reveals that the pre-crisis financing environment was broadly favourable for SMEs and entrepreneurs, who benefited from low interest rates, loose credit standards and an increasingly diverse offer of financing instruments. It documents the unprecedented scope and scale of the policy responses undertaken by governments world-wide, and details their key characteristics, and outlines the principal issues and policy challenges for the next phases of the pandemic, such as the over-indebtedness of SMEs and the need to continue to foster a diverse range of financing instruments for SMEs.




Digital Banking Support to Small Businesses Amid COVID-19


Book Description

This note analyzes the economic impact of digital lending to micro and small sized enterprises (MSEs) in China during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. A preliminary analysis of a large pool of MSEs served by a digital bank indicates that digital banks were able to remotely evaluate borrowers and sustain lending during the pandemic, thereby facilitating the business continuity, sales growth, and financial inclusiveness of MSEs. In the global context, a policy framework—leveraging the advantages of digital banks and empowering digital banks, while guarding against possible financial stability risks—would further support small businesses during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.




COVID-19 and SME Failures


Book Description

Abstract: We estimate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on business failures among small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in seventeen countries using a large representative firm-level database. We use a simple model of firm cost-minimization and measure each firm's liquidity shortfall during and after COVID-19. Our framework allows for a rich combination of sectoral and aggregate supply, productivity, and demand shocks. We estimate a large increase in the failure rate of SMEs under COVID-19 of nearly 9 percentage points, absent government support. Accommodation & Food Services, Arts, Entertainment & Recreation, Education, and Other Services are among the most affected sectors. The jobs at risk due to COVID-19 related SME business failures represent 3.1 percent of private sector employment. Despite the large impact on business failures and employment, we estimate only moderate effects on the financial sector: the share of Non Performing Loans on bank balance sheets would increase by up to 11 percentage points, representing 0.3 percent of banks' assets and resulting in a 0.75 percentage point decline in the common equity Tier-1 capital ratio. We evaluate the cost and effectiveness of various policy interventions. The fiscal cost of an intervention that narrowly targets at risk firms can be modest (0.54% of GDP). However, at a similar level of effectiveness, non-targeted subsidies can be substantially more expensive (1.82% of GDP). Our results have important implications for the severity of the COVID-19 recession, the design of policies, and the speed of the recovery




Handbook of Research on Strategies and Interventions to Mitigate COVID-19 Impact on SMEs


Book Description

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every aspect of the modern world, and its impact is felt by all. The pandemic particularly has had a large impact on businesses as they were forced to close, supply chains were disrupted, and new health and safety precautions were adopted. As such, many businesses, especially small businesses, were faced with losses they could not afford. Governments and stakeholders across the world have thus needed to formulate various strategies and interventions to mitigate the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly as they relate to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The Handbook of Research on Strategies and Interventions to Mitigate COVID-19 Impact on SMEs is a comprehensive reference source that encapsulates the overall effect of COVID-19 on SMEs and a variety of strategies to overcome the negative effects and create more sustainable policies and organizations moving forward. The book offers a thorough overview of interventions and tactics to help organizations, entrepreneurs, and institutions of higher learning overcome the negative impact of COVID-19 while preparing policies for a more effective post-pandemic world. Covering topics that include sustainable practices for development, interventions to lessen the impact of COVID-19, and psychological resilience for SME employees, this book is Ideal for entrepreneurs, managers, executives, small businesses, family firms, academicians, scholar-practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and students.




Finance, Law, and the Crisis of COVID-19


Book Description

This book analyzes the impact of Covid-19 in different areas such as corporate social responsibility and legislation in SMEs, insolvency law, behavioral finance, government interventions in markets, financial disclosure, the emergence of unregulated financial sectors, the increase of coronavirus-related crimes, and the development of banking regulations in the Covid-19 pandemic, among others. The coronavirus epidemic, which has spread throughout the world, has highlighted the inadequacies of the health and social systems of all states, even the most advanced. The health emergency has required extraordinary measures, especially at the level of laws that are essential for the preservation of lives, health, and livelihoods. The priority for governments and even the international community was, from the outset, to prevent infections and care for those affected. Such a strategy required an unusual increase in health spending, even though it exceeded the State's financial capacity and lacked fiscal space. In addition to this challenge, which has not yet been overcome, there is another, that of redressing the consequences of the measures taken (general containment). It should be pointed out that during health crises, the state may have to review the requirement for transparency because of the emergency, but not free itself from it. The urgency could never be an alibi for a violation of citizens' rights and freedoms. With urgency, financial management systems must be flexible and responsive to all occurrences, while ensuring optimal use of resources and minimizing the risks of fraud and corruption.




The Economic and Financial Impacts of the COVID-19 Crisis Around the World


Book Description

The Economic and Financial Impacts of the COVID-19 Crisis Around the World: Expect the Unexpected provides an informed, research-based in-depth understanding of the COVID-19 crisis, its impacts on households, nonfinancial firms, banks, and financial market participants, and the effectiveness of the reactions of governments and policymakers in the United States and around the world. It provides reflections and perspectives on the social costs and benefits of various policies undertaken and a toolkit of preventive measures to deal with crises beyond the COVID-19 crisis. Authors Allen N. Berger, Mustafa U. Karakaplan, and Raluca A. Roman apply their expertise to the research and data on the COVID-19 economic crisis as well as draw on their own rich research experience. They take a holistic approach that compares and contrasts this crisis with other economic and financial crises and assesses economic and financial behavior and government policies in the booms before crises and the aftermaths following them, as well as the crises themselves. They do all this with a keen eye on “Expecting the Unexpected future crises, and policies that might anticipate them and provide better outcomes for society. Serves as a compendium of available research and data on COVID-19, policies in response to the pandemic, and its effects on the real economy, banking sector, and financial markets Contextualizes the COVID-19 economic crisis by comparing it to two other global crises from the past: the Crash of 1929 and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2009 Helps illustrate how crises that originate in financial markets and in the banking sector differ from each other as well as from the COVID-19 crisis that harmed the real economy first Compares the policies and outcomes of nations to the COVID-19 pandemic and assesses their costs and benefits, with potential implications for prospective future crises




Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Crisis


Book Description

Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Crisis: SME Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic aims to address the conditions for the operations of SMEs during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the governmental support for entrepreneurs in such industries as tourism, manufacturing, recycling, education, and printing as well as the creative industry. Through the presentation of various strategies for the functioning and development of companies under crisis conditions along with new management approaches for coping with them, this book discusses the conditions for the operations of SMEs during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the support for entrepreneurs that has been offered by the governments of different countries. This approach will allow our results to be useful for a wide audience – making it especially valuable to researchers, academics, policymakers, and advanced students who are interested in crises, entrepreneurship, small and medium-sized enterprises, and strategic management.




Financial Transformations Beyond The Covid-19 Health Crisis


Book Description

The COVID-19 global health pandemic, which started in late December 2019, forced many countries to adopt unusual measures such as social distancing and strict lockdowns. It changed many of our certainties and practices, including the foundations of the market-led version of capitalism, by bringing social and health considerations back to the forefront of firms' considerations, investors' strategies and governments' priorities. Under the effects of this unprecedented crisis, all sectors of finance and real economy have been seriously affected.Health uncertainties and their increasing consequences for human life and activities require stronger and faster actions to shape pathways towards sustainability and better resilience. The COVID-19 health crisis is a visible part of a greater iceberg: the World Health Organization has tracked, over recent years, a large number of epidemic events around the world, suggesting that many other similar diseases could appear and evolve in the future from epidemic to pandemic in a globalized world.Financial Transformations Beyond the COVID-19 Health Crisis was specifically designed to provide the readers with new results, recent findings and future outlook on the impacts of COVID-19 on financial markets, firm behaviors, and finance and investment strategies. It favors multidimensional perspectives and brings together conceptual, empirical and policy-oriented chapters, using quantitative and qualitative methods alike. This is a timely and comprehensive collection of theoretical, empirical and policy contributions from renowned scholars around the world, and provides the thoughts and insights required to rethink the financial sector in the event of new shocks of the same nature.




COVID-19 and the Finance Sector in Asia and the Pacific


Book Description

This guidance note examines the effects of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on real economies, particularly financial sectors, and the measures taken to ease the impact. It notes risks to financial stability, such as an anticipated rise in nonperforming assets. It also reviews short-term actions that can mitigate pressures on people, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), banking and capital markets, and insurance and pensions. Lastly, it provides medium-term policy considerations for resilience in the post- COVID-19 period. These include establishing a framework for epidemic risk financing, buttressing financial stability and macroprudential measures, developing insurance markets for risk sharing and transfer solutions, improving SME financing, and fostering digital transformation in the finance sector.