Research Insights: Did Government-Guaranteed Loans Help MSMEs Mitigate the COVID-19 Pandemic Shock?

Using Chile and Colombia as case studies, we conducted two randomized controlled trials to test how government-guaranteed loans during the COVID-19 pandemic impacted firms liquidity and earnings. COVID-19 loans improved total liquidity of treated micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) by 15.7%. The increase in short-term liquidity may have had a positive impact on MSMEs economic performance during the pandemics economic deterioration.