Evaluation of the impacts of government policies during an economic crisis is often delayed until the outcomes are realized. Policies can be better guided if they can be evaluated amid a crisis, before the realization of outcomes. This study examines whether survey data on the expectations of small business managers can help evaluate two high-stake subsidies for firms amid the COVID-19 crisis in Japan, namely, Subsidy Program for Sustaining Businesses (SPSB) and Employment Adjustment Subsidy (EAS). We evaluate the accuracy of managers' expectations, estimate the impact of subsidies on the expected firm survival, and compare it with the estimated impact on realized survival. We find that the managers' expectations on their future sales, survival rate, and the possibility of receiving these subsidies predict the realized outcomes, although they were highly pessimistic about their survival rates. We find that the estimated impacts of the SPSB on the expected survival rates have the same sign as the estimated impact on the realized survival rates, but the size is more than twice because of the pessimism on survival. The estimated impacts of the EAS are both insignificant. Therefore, although its impact may be overestimated, managers' expectations are useful for selecting an effective policy.

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利用管理者的预期进行事前政策评估：来自 COVID-19 危机的证据

经济危机期间对政府政策影响的评估往往要等到结果实现后才进行。如果能够在危机期间、在实现成果之前对政策进行评估，就能更好地指导政策。本研究探讨了关于小企业管理者期望的调查数据是否可以帮助评估在日本 COVID-19 危机期间为企业提供的两项高风险补贴，即维持企业补贴计划 (SPSB) 和就业调整补贴 (EAS)。我们评估管理者预期的准确性，估计补贴对预期企业生存的影响，并将其与对已实现生存的估计影响进行比较。我们发现，管理者对未来销售、生存率以及获得这些补贴的可能性的预期预测了实现的结果，尽管他们对生存率非常悲观。我们发现，SPSB 对预期生存率的估计影响与对已实现生存率的估计影响具有相同的符号，但由于对生存的悲观态度，其规模是其两倍多。EAS 的估计影响都是微不足道的。因此，尽管其影响可能被高估，但管理者的预期对于选择有效的政策是有用的。