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.

Keywords: COVID‐19; Ghana; Keynesians economists; SMEs; best‐worst method.

FIGURE 1

Research design

FIGURE 2

Ranking of strategies