Many small businesses closed in the pandemic, but were economic losses disproportionately felt by businesses owned by people of color? This paper provides the first study of the impacts of COVID-19 on racial inequality in business earnings. Pandemic-induced losses to business earnings in 2020 were 16% to 19% for all business owners. Racial inequality increased in the pandemic: Black business owners experienced larger negative impacts on business earnings of 12% to 14% relative to White business owners. Regression estimates for Latinx and Asian business owners reveal negative point estimates but the estimates are not statistically significant. Using Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions and a new pandemic-focused decomposition technique, I find that the industry concentrations of Black, Latinx, and Asian business owners placed each of these groups at a higher risk of experiencing disproportionate business earnings losses in the pandemic. Higher education levels among Asian business owners helped insulate them from larger losses from COVID-19. In the following year of economic recovery, 2021, business earnings rebounded strongly for all groups except for Asian business owners, who experienced large relative losses (which were partly due to industry concentrations). State-level variation in policies and disease spread does not explain racial differences in business earnings losses or rebounds.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 对商业收入种族不平等的影响

许多小企业在大流行中倒闭，但有色人种拥有的企业是否遭受了不成比例的经济损失？本文首次研究了 COVID-19 对商业收入种族不平等的影响。 2020 年，所有企业主因疫情造成的企业收入损失为 16% 至 19%。疫情期间种族不平等加剧：相对于白人企业主，黑人企业主对企业收入的负面影响更大，达 12% 至 14%。对拉丁裔和亚洲企业主的回归估计显示负点估计，但这些估计在统计上并不显着。使用布林德-瓦哈卡分解和一种新的以大流行为重点的分解技术，我发现黑人、拉丁裔和亚洲企业主的行业集中度使这些群体在大流行中面临不成比例的商业收入损失的更高风险。亚洲企业主的高等教育水平有助于他们避免因 COVID-19 造成更大损失。在经济复苏的下一年，即 2021 年，除了亚洲企业主遭受了较大的相对损失（部分原因是行业集中度）外，所有群体的企业盈利均强劲反弹。州一级政策和疾病传播的差异并不能解释企业盈利损失或反弹的种族差异。