IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eti/dpaper/24001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Imperfect Take-up of COVID-19 Business Support Programs

Author

Listed:
  • HONDA Tomohito
  • HOSONO Kaoru
  • MIYAKAWA Daisuke
  • ONO Arito
  • UESUGI Iichiro

Abstract

Not all firms and individuals targeted by government support measures take up the support even when eligible, i.e., take-up is imperfect. Using data on the use by small and medium-sized enterprises in Japan of various business support measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, we examine whether such imperfect take-up is observed and if so, why. Given that the eligibility criteria for the measures were based on the decline in monthly sales from the previous year, we use a regression discontinuity design. Our results show that take-up of all the measures we examine was imperfect except for one, business continuity grants (BCGs). Our results further show that the imperfect take-up of measures other than BCGs was mitigated when firms that were eligible for those other measures also became eligible for a BCG. Results from sub-sample analyses indicate that these findings can be explained by the transaction costs involved in applying for and using these measures and not by information frictions or a lack of knowledge about the measures.

Suggested Citation

  • HONDA Tomohito & HOSONO Kaoru & MIYAKAWA Daisuke & ONO Arito & UESUGI Iichiro, 2024. "Imperfect Take-up of COVID-19 Business Support Programs," Discussion papers 24001, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    • Handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:24001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/24e001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Honda, Tomohito & Hosono, Kaoru & Miyakawa, Daisuke & Ono, Arito & Uesugi, Iichiro, 2023. "Determinants and effects of the use of COVID-19 business support programs in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    2. Eric Zwick, 2021. "The Costs of Corporate Tax Complexity," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 467-500, May.
    3. Moffitt, Robert, 1983. "An Economic Model of Welfare Stigma," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 1023-1035, December.
    4. Cui, Wei & Hicks, Jeffrey & Xing, Jing, 2022. "Cash on the table? Imperfect take-up of tax incentives and firm investment behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    5. Bonfim, Diana & Custódio, Cláudia & Raposo, Clara, 2023. "Supporting small firms through recessions and recoveries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(3), pages 658-688.
    6. Janet Currie & Firouz Gahvari, 2008. "Transfers in Cash and In-Kind: Theory Meets the Data," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 333-383, June.
    7. Saurabh Bhargava & Dayanand Manoli, 2015. "Psychological Frictions and the Incomplete Take-Up of Social Benefits: Evidence from an IRS Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(11), pages 3489-3529, November.
    8. Robert A. Moffitt, 2003. "Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number moff03-1, May.
    9. Amy Finkelstein & Matthew J Notowidigdo, 2019. "Take-Up and Targeting: Experimental Evidence from SNAP," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1505-1556.
    10. Uesugi, Iichiro & Uchida, Hirofumi & Iwaki, Hiromichi, 2020. "Impact of a Change in Government Loan Interest Rateson Ratesand Amount of LoansExtended by Other Banks," Economic Review, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 71(4), pages 333-357, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ha Trong Nguyen & Huong Thu Le & Luke B Connelly, 2021. "Who's declining the “free lunch”? New evidence from the uptake of public child dental benefits," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(2), pages 270-288, February.
    2. Rosenqvist, Olof & Selin, Håkan, 2023. "Explaining benefit take-up behavior – the role of incentives and habits," Working Paper Series 2023:24, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    3. Hunt Allcott & Daniel Cohen & William Morrison & Dmitry Taubinsky, 2022. "When do "Nudges" Increase Welfare?," NBER Working Papers 30740, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. B. Boutchenik & R. Lardeux, 2020. "The Take-Up of Unemployment Benefit Extensions," Documents de Travail de l'Insee - INSEE Working Papers g2020-02, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques.
    5. Tincani, Michela M. & Kosse, Fabian & Miglino, Enrico, 2022. "The Effect of Preferential Admissions on the College Participation of Disadvantaged Students: The Role of Pre-College Choices," IZA Discussion Papers 15633, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Tatiana Homonoff & Jason Somerville, 2021. "Program Recertification Costs: Evidence from SNAP," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 271-298, November.
    7. Robert A. Moffitt & Matthew V. Zahn, 2019. "The Marginal Labor Supply Disincentives of Welfare: Evidence from Administrative Barriers to Participation," NBER Working Papers 26028, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Laurence Jacquet, 2014. "Tagging and redistributive taxation with imperfect disability monitoring," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 42(2), pages 403-435, February.
    9. Delis, Manthos & Galariotis, Emilios & Monne, Jerome, 2021. "Financial vulnerability and seeking expert advice: Evidence from a survey experiment," MPRA Paper 107095, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Michela Maria Tincani & Fabian Kosse & Enrico Miglino, 2022. "The Effect of Preferential Admissions on the College Participation of Disadvantaged Students: The Role of Pre-College Choices," CESifo Working Paper Series 10020, CESifo.
    11. Abe Dunn & Joshua D. Gottlieb & Adam Shapiro & Daniel J. Sonnenstuhl & Pietro Tebaldi, 2021. "A Denial a Day Keeps the Doctor Away," NBER Working Papers 29010, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Hoynes, Hilary Williamson & Schanzenbach, Diane Whitmore, 2012. "Work incentives and the Food Stamp Program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 151-162.
    13. Friedrichsen, Jana & König, Tobias & Schmacker, Renke, 2018. "Social image concerns and welfare take-up," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 174-192.
    14. Yuya Katafuchi & Kenichi Kurita & Shunsuke Managi, 2021. "COVID-19 with Stigma: Theory and Evidence from Mobility Data," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 71-95, April.
    15. Olivier Bargain, 2017. "Welfare analysis and redistributive policies," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 15(4), pages 393-419, December.
    16. Kaufmann, Cornel & Schmid, Christian & Boes, Stefan, 2017. "Health insurance subsidies and deductible choice: Evidence from regional variation in subsidy schemes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 262-273.
    17. Zhuan Pei, 2017. "Eligibility Recertification and Dynamic Opt-In Incentives in Income-Tested Social Programs: Evidence from Medicaid/CHIP," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 241-276, February.
    18. Christopher Roth & Peter Schwardmann & Egon Tripodi, 2024. "Depression Stigma," CESifo Working Paper Series 11012, CESifo.
    19. Marc K. Chan & Robert Moffitt, 2018. "Welfare Reform and the Labor Market," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 347-381, August.
    20. Hilary W. Hoynes & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, 2009. "Consumption Responses to In-Kind Transfers: Evidence from the Introduction of the Food Stamp Program," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 109-139, October.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:24001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: TANIMOTO, Toko (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rietijp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.