Zombies or still alive : who took advantage of COVID-19 state aid?

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Theoretical background: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has caused violent reactions from the governments of almost all countries in the world. The attempt to contain a pandemic by restricting the mobility of society has had a huge impact on people and some businesses. As a result of COVID-19 restrictions, it became necessary to introduce special state aid programs for those businesses that were most affected by these restrictions. This was also the case in Poland. We based our analysis on welfare economics (Harberger, 1971), in which government support for enterprises is legitimized when their situation would have been worse without these interventions.

Purpose of the article: The aim of this article is to assess the impact of public aid granted to large companies in Poland on their financial condition. The research problem is to answer the question whether the companies that received the aid needed it. In assessing the appropriateness of aid, liquidity, debt level and profitability indices were used, which directly resulted from the objectives of COVID-19 aid granted in Poland. The added value of the study is combining the analysis of data from financial statements with information on state aid published by the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK).

Research methods: The research sample consisted of 1,201 large Polish enterprises from the non-financial sector. The study used non-parametric statistical tests and quartile analysis.

Main findings: The results show that the aid went to entities that were already in a worse financial situation before the pandemic. At the same time, it was demonstrated that the aid did not distort the market mechanism, i.e. it neither excessively improved the situation of supported entities nor significantly worsened the situation of entities that did not benefit from the aid.

Tytuł
Zombies or still alive : who took advantage of COVID-19 state aid?
Twórca
Wiśniewski Tomasz ORCID 0000-0003-3423-5572
Słowa kluczowe
public aid; COVID-19; financial performance
Słowa kluczowe
pomoc publiczna; wyniki finansowe
Współtwórca
Adamczyk Adam ORCID 0000-0002-0491-5502
Franek Sławomir ORCID 0000-0002-9698-4918
Data
2022
Typ zasobu
artykuł
Identyfikator zasobu
DOI 10.17951/h.2022.56.2.149-163
Źródło
Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska. Sectio H, Oeconomia, 2022, vol. 56 no 2, pp. 149-163
Język
angielski
Prawa autorskie
CC BY CC BY
Dyscyplina naukowa
Dziedzina nauk społecznych; Ekonomia i finanse
Kategorie
Publikacje pracowników US
Data udostępnienia27 gru 2022, 14:49:26
Data mod.7 cze 2023, 14:22:38
DostępPubliczny
Aktywnych wyświetleń0