Relying on a novel dataset covering more than 120,000 firms in 60 countries, this paper contributes to the debate about policies to support businesses through the COVID-19 pandemic. While governments around the world have implemented a wide range of policy support measures, evidence on the reach of these policies, the alignment of measures with firm needs, and their targeting and effectiveness remains scarce. This paper provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of these issues, focusing primarily on developing economies. It shows that policy reach has been limited, especially for more vulnerable firms and countries, and identifies mismatches between policies provided and policies most sought. It also provides some indicative evidence regarding mistargeting of policies and their effectiveness in addressing liquidity constraints and preventing layoffs. This assessment provides some early guidance to policymakers on tailoring their COVID-19 business support packages and points to new directions in data and research efforts needed to guide policy responses to the current pandemic and future crises.

中文翻译：

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支持企业度过 COVID-19 冲击的政策：企业层面的观点

本文依靠涵盖 60 个国家/地区的 120,000 多家公司的新数据集，为有关支持企业度过 COVID-19 大流行的政策的辩论做出了贡献。尽管世界各国政府已经实施了广泛的政策支持措施，但关于这些政策的影响范围、措施与企业需求的一致性以及它们的针对性和有效性的证据仍然很少。本文提供了迄今为止对这些问题最全面的评估，主要关注发展中经济体。它表明政策范围有限，特别是对于更脆弱的公司和国家，并确定了所提供的政策与最寻求的政策之间的不匹配。它还提供了一些关于政策目标错误及其在解决流动性限制和防止裁员方面的有效性的指示性证据。该评估为政策制定者定制其 COVID-19 业务支持包提供了一些早期指导，并指出了指导政策应对当前大流行和未来危机所需的数据和研究工作的新方向。