Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted every facet of life globally. Business and commerce are key areas where the monetary crunch has been acutely felt. This study aims to analyze the various key changes in entities’ activities to evaluate the level of business performance in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, we use panel data analysis on 218 Romanian listed companies of different sizes (big and small) and belonging to different business sectors for the period June 30, 2019–June 30, 2020. We find that the net profits of the overall market decreased by 37.43% over the analyzed period. However, small companies engaged in agriculture, commerce, construction, IT R&D, and transport and storage witnessed better financial performance. In addition, our results show that equity financing, proper liquidity management, and an increased company size consolidate the economic performance of entities regarding return on equity and return on assets. Our findings are useful for policymakers such as managers and investors and can help them make the best decision for their managing or investing activities. Moreover, governments need to know how companies respond to the pandemic to identify the sectors of activity that are more vulnerable to the crisis’ effects and the main financial management decisions that must be adopted by companies during times of crises.

摘要

COVID-19 大流行已经扰乱了全球生活的方方面面。商业和商业是严重感受到货币紧缩的关键领域。本研究旨在分析实体活动中的各种关键变化，以评估应对 COVID-19 大流行的业务绩效水平。为此，我们对 2019 年 6 月 30 日至 2020 年 6 月 30 日期间 218 家不同规模（大小）、属于不同行业的罗马尼亚上市公司进行面板数据分析。在分析期间，市场下跌了 37.43%。然而，从事农业、商业、建筑、IT 研发、运输和仓储的小公司的财务表现较好。此外，我们的研究结果表明，股权融资、适当的流动性管理、公司规模的扩大巩固了实体在股本回报率和资产回报率方面的经济表现。我们的研究结果对管理者和投资者等政策制定者很有用，可以帮助他们为自己的管理或投资活动做出最佳决策。此外，政府需要了解公司如何应对大流行，以确定更容易受到危机影响的活动部门以及公司在危机期间必须采取的主要财务管理决策。