Fiscal Stimulus and Firms’ Sales and Capital Expenditure During the Global Financial Crisis

Using firm-level data from the Refinitiv Datastream Worldscope database for more than 17,253 non-financial firms in 45 advanced and emerging economies, this paper examines how fiscal stimulus interacted with sectoral business cycle sensitivity has affected firms’ sales and capital expenditures during the global financial crisis. Cross-sectional analyses indicate that reductions in structural fiscal balances are associated with higher firms’ sales and capital expenditures (as percentage of their total assets) in 2009. This result is obtained notably for the manufacturing and construction industries and for different regions depending on the firm performance variable. Our findings have key implications for the design of fiscal response to shocks at industry and firm levels, including during the current COVID-19 pandemic. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41294-021-00160-5.