ABSTRACT
Abstract: The relative importance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large firms is a recurrent topic in the small business economics literature. This paper presents a real and financial social accounting matrix (FSAM) capable of distinguishing the direct and indirect effects that are transferred from micro-, small, medium, and large firms to the rest of the economy. We use the hypothetical extraction method (HEM) to explore the sequence of reactions associated with shocks that arise from the COVID-19 lockdown. Using a structural model for the Spanish economy, we identify the role of different firm size categories in the aggregate gross domestic product (GDP). Our results allow us to reconcile the mixed narrative that accompanies the evaluation of the role played by these categories in economic activity by revealing that both SMEs and large firms are important for supporting economic activity. In particular, SMEs help explain 43% of the income and two-thirds of the unemployment decline caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings also show the importance of conditioning SME industrial policy to sectoral analysis. Plain English summary: The effects of the macroeconomic lockdown and its transmission to the rest of the economy differ by firm size and across sectors. Using the Spanish context for micro-, small, medium, and large firms, we distinguish the direct and indirect effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The main implications are the following: (1) Research: results emphasize that SMEs and large firms are both important to support economic activity but, in order to account for the relative effects on SMEs, it is crucial to consider the specific sector that receives the disruption. 2) Policy: SMEs are an important focus of business support policies within the EU. According to our estimations, disruptions in SMEs produce larger reductions in demand. These results could support credit policies for SMEs with a strong impact on the aggregate economy due to their greater productive and financial linkages with the domestic economy.
ABSTRACT
A common problem in compiling and updating Social Accounting Matrices (SAM) or Input-Output tables is that of incomplete information. In the case of the submatrix 'Property Income of the Account Allocation of Primary Income', the information published by the National Bureau of Statistics of Spain (INE) is limited because it is not possible to build the set of from-whom-to-whom sub-matrix on income interest, dividends, securities and rents with only the subtotals presented in the Integrated Economic Accounts (IEA). This because the income distribution received and paid for by each institutional sector required for a financial SAM is not available, i.e. the INE does not break down the data by institutional destination and source. In this sense, our contribution rely on estimating a complete series of from-whom-to-whom matrices of Property Income for the Spanish economy between 1999 and 2016, in which we have devoted special attention to staying in line with the Data Gaps Initiative (DGI-2) recommendation released by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), claiming that more focus is needed on data sets that support the monitoring of risks in the financial sector in response to regulatory and macro-financial emerging policy needs).
