Euro-area business confidence and COVID-19

Abstract

I study the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on business confidence in 11 Euro area countries and its impact on economic activity. To obtain causal effects, I instrument business confidence with domestic household confidence as well as household confidence in neighboring countries. I find evidence suggesting that the confidence channel was a sizable component to the economic transmission of COVID-19. A one standard deviation drop in business confidence leads to between 5–6 and 9% fall in economic activity in the industrial and wholesale and retail trade sectors, respectively. These results highlight the importance of managing confidence and expectations in crisis episodes.