COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND TURKISH MANUFACTURING FIRMS

Abstract

Purpose: Globally taken similar measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic caused disruptions in the supply and demand schedules and increase in uncertainty. The shock of this pandemic has forced many firms to take new actions and make new business decisions. The aim of this study is to examine the heterogeneity of the production, employment and policy decisions taken by the firms against the pandemic across productivity distribution.Methdology: For this purpose, pandemic specific survey responses of a representative panel of 1207 Turkish manufacturing firms matched with pre-pandemic tendency survey responses and administrative data and cross sectional models are employed.Findings: Estimation results show that productive firms of the Turkish manufacturing sector have taken firmer stance against the devastating economic impact of the pandemic at the initial wave. They are more likely to continue the production and less likely to reduce the employment and to benefit from government supports.Originality: This study uses unique firm-level dataset that enable to investigate the effects of the pandemic and mitigation policies on firms using representative survey data for Turkish manufacturing sector. This will contribute to the existing narrow empirical literature on the impact of COVID-19 on manufacturing firms by providing new evidence on a large developing country, Türkiye, based on representative firm-level dataset.

Keywords

• covid-19 şoku
• firmalar
• verimlilik
• i̇malat sanayi
• türkiye
• covid-19 shock
• firms
• productivity
• manufacturing sector
• türkiye