IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/econpa/v42y2023i1p54-71.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effect of COVID‐19 Lockdown on the Profitability of Firms in India

Author

Listed:
  • Ritika Jain
  • Rajnish Kumar

Abstract

We examine the effect of COVID‐19‐induced lockdown on the profitability of listed firms in India. We use quarterly income statement of 4168 listed firms for the period between April–June 2020 quarter and April–June 2022 quarter and compare their financial data with previous quarters (2015–2019). Using a difference‐in‐difference estimation framework and various profitability measures, we find that the COVID‐19 lockdown has reduced profits by around 15 per cent for listed firms in India. Our results are robust to various robustness tests and alternate specifications. We find evidence of firms losing revenues more than expenses, thus leading to decline in profits. The main effect is conditioned by firm‐specific factors. Specifically, firms that are smaller, older, unlisted and that do not belong to any group witnessed larger decline in profitability due to lockdown. Additionally, the effect of lockdown is more pronounced in areas that had lower mobility and higher COVID‐19 spread. These results underscore the importance of institutional factors and pre‐existing firm characteristics in conditioning the impact of lockdown on firm profitability.

Suggested Citation

  • Ritika Jain & Rajnish Kumar, 2023. "Effect of COVID‐19 Lockdown on the Profitability of Firms in India," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 42(1), pages 54-71, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:econpa:v:42:y:2023:i:1:p:54-71
    DOI: 10.1111/1759-3441.12377
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1759-3441.12377
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1759-3441.12377?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anderson, Michael L., 2008. "Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103(484), pages 1481-1495.
    2. Steven J. Davis & Dingqian Liu & Xuguang Simon Sheng, 2022. "Stock Prices and Economic Activity in the Time of Coronavirus," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 70(1), pages 32-67, March.
    3. Jain Ritika, 2021. "Information and Communication Technology Adoption and the Demand for Female Labor: The Case of Indian Industry," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 695-722, April.
    4. Tarun Khanna & Krishna Palepu, 2000. "Is Group Affiliation Profitable in Emerging Markets? An Analysis of Diversified Indian Business Groups," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 867-891, April.
    5. Yang, Jianlei & Yang, Chunpeng, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty, COVID-19 lockdown, and firm-level volatility: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    6. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew & Marcus, Jan, 2020. "Using Difference-in-Differences to Identify Causal Effects of COVID-19 Policies," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 14(2), pages 153-158.
    7. Pramod Soni, 2021. "Effects of COVID-19 lockdown phases in India: an atmospheric perspective," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(8), pages 12044-12055, August.
    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. Adan Silverio-Murillo & Daniel Prudencio & Jose Roberto Balmori-de-la-Miyar, 2024. "The Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Risk of Corruption," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 1293-1313, December.
    2. Wright, Austin L. & Sonin, Konstantin & Driscoll, Jesse & Wilson, Jarnickae, 2020. "Poverty and economic dislocation reduce compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place protocols," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 544-554.
    3. Chang-Yang Lee & Ji-Hwan Lee & Ajai S. Gaur, 2017. "Are large business groups conducive to industry innovation? The moderating role of technological appropriability," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 313-337, June.
    4. Eunsoo Kim & Suyon Kim & Jaehong Lee, 2021. "Do Foreign Investors Affect Carbon Emission Disclosure? Evidence from South Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-14, September.
    5. Gibbons, Stephen & Silva, Olmo & Weinhardt, Felix, 2017. "Neighbourhood Turnover and Teenage Attainment," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 746-783.
    6. Bandiera, Oriana. & Buehren, Niklas. & Burgess, Robin & Goldstein, Markus P., & Gulesci, Selim. & Rasul, Imran. & Sulaiman, Munshi., 2015. "Women’s economic empowerment in action : evidence from a randomized control trial in Africa," ILO Working Papers 994874053402676, International Labour Organization.
    7. Jongmoo Jay Choi & Hoje Jo & Jimi Kim & Moo Sung Kim, 2018. "Business Groups and Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(4), pages 931-954, December.
    8. Wei Huang & Hong Zhang & Abhinav Goyal & Jason Laws, 2019. "Internal capital market mergers in weak external market environment: An emerging market evidence," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(4), pages 1486-1505, October.
    9. Riaz, Zahid & Ray, Pradeep & Ray, Sangeeta, 2022. "The impact of digitalisation on corporate governance in Australia," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 410-424.
    10. Martin Beraja & Andrew Kao & David Y Yang & Noam Yuchtman, 2023. "Ai-Tocracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(3), pages 1349-1402.
    11. Cantoni, Enrico & Gazzè, Ludovica & Schafer, Jerome, 2021. "Turnout in concurrent elections: Evidence from two quasi-experiments in Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    12. Mari, Gabriele, 2020. "Working-time flexibility is (not the same) for all: Evidence from a right-to-request reform," SocArXiv bnp9r, Center for Open Science.
    13. Hwang, Yujung & Nguyen, Toan, 2025. "Is sex ratio a valid distribution factor in a collective model?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    14. Dai, Zhifeng & Zhu, Junxin & Zhang, Xinhua, 2022. "Time-frequency connectedness and cross-quantile dependence between crude oil, Chinese commodity market, stock market and investor sentiment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    15. Cramer, Kim Fe, 2023. "Bank presence and health," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119194, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Bernard Yeung & Randall Morck & Daniel Wolfenzon, 2004. "Corporate Governance, Economic Entrenchment and Growth," Working Papers 04-21, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    17. Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Zhao, Jun, 2020. "Doubly robust difference-in-differences estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 101-122.
    18. Vu, Trung V., 2021. "Do genetically fragmented societies respond less to global warming? Diversity and climate change policies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    19. Faozi A Almaqtari & Najib H S Farhan & Hamood Mohammed Al-Hattami & Tamer Elsheikh, 2022. "The moderation role of board independence change in the relationship between board characteristics, related party transactions, and financial performance," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(12), pages 1-38, December.
    20. Adomako, Samuel & Amankwah-Amoah, Joseph & Dankwah, George Obeng & Danso, Albert & Donbesuur, Francis, 2019. "Institutional voids, international learning effort and internationalization of emerging market new ventures," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 25(4).

    More about this item

    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:bla:econpa:v:42:y:2023:i:1:p:54-71. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esausea.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.