%0 Report
        %A Buchheim, Lukas
%A Krolage, Carla
%A Link, Sebastian
        %T Sudden Stop: When Did Firms Anticipate the Potential Consequences of COVID-19?
        %D 2020
        %8 2020 Jul
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 13457
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp13457
        %X COVID-19 hit firms by surprise. In a high frequency, representative panel of German firms, the business outlook declined and business uncertainty increased only when the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic led to domestic policy changes: The announcement of nation-wide school closures on March 13 caused by far the largest change in business perceptions. In contrast, business perceptions hardly reacted to any other potential source of information: Firms did not learn from foreign policy measures, even if they relied on inputs from China or Italy. The local, county-level spread of COVID-19 cases affected expectations and uncertainty, albeit to a much lesser extent than the domestic policy changes.
        %K COVID-19
%K expectations
%K uncertainty
%K policy
%K firms