Little is known about the geography of firm survival during COVID-19. We investigated the effect heterogeneity of the pandemic itself and of business support funding by the Finnish government with respect to rural and urban business closures. To do so, we utilised regional data on firm survival, detailed business support funding data and a rural–urban typology for Finland. Results from panel regressions showed that the pandemic had an overall negative impact on businesses in terms of an increased closure rate of about 20–30% during the period 2020q2–2022q4, which was generally higher in urban than rural areas. While the bulk of business support funding from the Finnish government during the pandemic went to urban businesses, COVID-19 funding mitigated the effects of the pandemic on business closures equally across the different rural–urban categories. Counterfactual simulations show that the average closure rate would have been about 10–12% higher during the pandemic if no business support funding schemes would have been implemented.

中文翻译：

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危机时期农村企业的复原力：芬兰 COVID-19 大流行期间的企业生存

人们对 COVID-19 期间企业生存的地理分布知之甚少。我们调查了流行病本身以及芬兰政府的企业支持资金对农村和城市企业倒闭的影响异质性。为此，我们利用了有关企业生存的区域数据、详细的企业支持资金数据以及芬兰的城乡类型学。面板回归结果显示，疫情对企业产生了总体负面影响，2020年第二季度至2022年第四季度期间，企业倒闭率增加了约20%至30%，其中城市地区普遍高于农村地区。尽管芬兰政府在疫情期间提供的大部分企业支持资金都流向了城市企业，但 COVID-19 资金同样减轻了疫情对城乡不同类别企业倒闭的影响。反事实模拟显示，如果不实施企业支持资助计划，疫情期间的平均关闭率将高出约 10-12%。