Assessing governments response to exogenous shocks: Considering the COVID‐19 pandemic in the Ghanaian context

Abstract

Amid the COVID‐19 pandemic, governments in most countries have played two key roles. First, to limit the disease's spread, and second to support small enterprises (SMEs) to revamp their operations. This study employs the best‐worst method technique to evaluate data from 150 managers to assess these government policies' effectiveness to quicken SMEs' operations amid COVID‐19 using Ghana as a case study. Our findings show that the three most effective government interventions in quickening SMEs' operations are soft loan, guarantee support, and interventions on statutory payments. We recommend that although the government should allocate greater resources to those policies with strategies contributing to the recovery process, they should not neglect the policies with lesser weights but should reduce their capital allocation. Our study offers insights into how governments can contribute to SMEs operations during exogenous shock. The findings can be useful to both researchers and policymakers towards revamping economies amid COVID‐19 pandemic.

An interpretable system for predicting the impact of COVID-19 government interventions on stock market sectors

“…First, COVID-19-related government interventions can be used to forecast the returns and volatility of the financial sector stock markets. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the pioneer in this implementation and confirms that government interventions can be used to predict the financial markets (Tuffour et al, 2021 ). These findings enrich stock market research and emphasize emergency supervision policy as one of the core forecasting factors.…”

“…For example, stimulus packages, lockdowns, and travel bans have been proven to be effective measures, along with other policies for controlling the outbreak like social distancing (Biswas & Alfandari, 2022 ; Carranza et al, 2022 ; Chen et al, 2021 ; Phan & Narayan, 2020 ). Various health-related programs and economic support plans, such as income support and debt relief, have been implemented in attempts to ease the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak (Horvath & Lang, 2021 ; Tuffour et al, 2021 ). These COVID-19-related government interventions undoubtedly have slowed its spread across countries and mitigated its devastating impact on economies and society.…”

“…These interventions, especially the “lockdown” restrictions, have had an extraordinary impact on both the nonmarket and market scenarios (Birge et al, 2022 ; Kumar et al, 2022 ; Wang et al, 2021 ). While some of these interventions effectively prevented the further development and worsening of the COVID-19 pandemic (Horvath & Lang, 2021 ; Sharma et al, 2021 ), others had the potential to revive and stabilize economic and social development (Tuffour et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Specifically, Wang et al ( 2021 ) indicated government interventions promote travel and leisure stock market returns and restrain its volatility. Tuffour et al ( 2021 ) indicated that soft loans, guarantee support, and statutory payment interventions seem to support small enterprises in revamping their operations. Undoubtedly, the COVID-19-related government interventions affected economic activity and investor sentiment, which were reflected in financial markets (Aharon & Siev, 2021 ; Ahmed et al, 2023 ; Ashraf, 2020 ; Chai et al, 2022 ; He et al, 2020b ; Topcu & Gulal, 2020 ).…”

SARSCOV‐19 amidst corruption: Does the civil society matter? – An empirical study

“…Incontrovertibly, the COVID‐19 pandemic outbreak has posed substantial challenges to not only public health structures, but also, individuals, households and populations, as well as the entirety of global economies and corporate governance structures (Arkorful, 2022a ; Arkorful, Lugu, Shuliang, 2021 ; Tuffour et al, 2021 ). With the pandemic outbreak and the increasing mortality and morbidity cases, in addition to being described as a virulent virus with inestimable ramifications on social structures in both developed and developing polities, COVID‐19 is also reported as the 21st Century's pandemic with life‐threatening consequences (Arkorful, 2022b ).…”