German Business Panel, Covid-19 Survey (2020/2021). Data file for on-site use

The German Business Panel (GBP) is a data infrastructure that periodically surveys executives and key decision-makers in a representative sample of German firms, eliciting their perceptions, views, and expectations. The primary objective of the longitudinal panel study is to generate evidence on the role of accounting and tax regulation for companies. It is part of the Collaborative Research Center (SFB/TRR) Project-ID 403041268 – TRR 266 Accounting for Transparency.

The 2020 GBP Covid-19 Survey focusses on the impact of the health crisis on firm´s key outcomes like revenues, profits, as well as perceptions, responses, and plans of decision makers. Questions elicit manager and firm characteristics, as well as perceptions on economic uncertainty, firm survival, government economic policy, take-up of government support, and managerial strategies to responds to the crisis as well as future investment and employment plans. The questionnaire includes various instruments with experimental variation. More information is available at gbpanel.org.

The 2020 GBP Covid-19 Survey was conducted from July-October 2020 and from November-February 2021 on a rolling basis among a representative sample of decision makers of legally independent private and public businesses with economic activity in the Federal Republic of Germany. For each of the two survey periods, the sampling involved a two-stage procedure. First, a simple random sample was drawn, which was then in a second step randomly allocated according to a contact protocol to generate a rolling cross-section. The two rolling cross-sections together form a rolling panel. The survey was conducted by the German Business Panel team, Mannheim. Interviews were conducted using online computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI). Parts of the interviews involved computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI).<br>Wave 1:
Legal form of the company; annual sales in 2019 (open, categorized); number of employees subject to social security contributions in the company (open/categorized); economic sector of the company; change in various key figures due to the Corona crisis (data in percent): Monthly sales, employees, cash and cash equivalents, liabilities, receivables, profits, provisions, access to inputs and intermediate products; expected date for the end of restrictions in Germany due to the Corona crisis; Certainty regarding the stated date for the end of restrictions; expectation of a second wave of infections before the end of the crisis; estimated date for the start of the second wave of infections; estimated date from which the company´s monthly sales will be as high as at the time before the Corona crisis; certainty that sales on the specified date will be as high as before the Corona crisis or certainty that sales will never again be as high as they were before the Corona crisis; use of non-tax government funds or measures due to the Corona crisis (Corona emergency aid, bridging aid, short-time work and short-time work allowance, liquidity guarantees, capital measures, refinancing of existing KfW loans, KfW special program and fast loan 2020, facilitated access to basic benefits, other, none of the measures); claimed tax measures (refund of advance tax payments already made in 2020, pro rata refund of advance tax payments made in 2019, deferral of tax payments, suspension of enforcement measures, taxation according to corporate income tax, deferral of the due date of import VAT, temporary reintroduction of declining balance depreciation, miscellaneous, none of the measures); expected survival of the company even without government measures; planned or already implemented price changes for final products in connection with the temporary reduction of VAT; price change in percent.

Experiment 1: State Measures (Ricardian Equivalence):
Respondents are randomly assigned to receive either background information or no additional information (control group). After the background information, all respondents are asked the same questions.
Government intervention with an economic stimulus package at the expense of taxpayers is justified; expected short-term and medium-term changes in the tax rates of various tax types (corporate income tax, trade tax, personal income tax, social security contributions, solidarity contribution, capital gains tax (in percentage points); desired adjustment of the tax rates of the aforementioned tax types in percentage points; expected change in gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 and 2021 compared with the respective previous year (in percent).

Experiment 2: Economic recovery forecast:
Extent of uncertainty arising from the Corona crisis for the company´s business; investments currently planned for the short term; investments currently planned for the medium term; short-term or types of investments planned for the long term (real investments, intangible investments, financial investments, other); percentage of sales generated in 2019 to be invested in the short term; percentage of sales to be invested in the medium term; of the planned investment volume, investments have been postponed or cancelled altogether (in percent); plans to hire additional employees in the short or medium term; number of additional employees to be hired in the short or to be hired in the medium term; estimated proportion of companies in own sector that will survive the Corona crisis by Dec. 31, 2020 (in percent); short-term measures to cover the additional burden of the Corona crisis (e.g. reduction in future wage increases or bonus payments, job cuts, etc.); groups for whom a reduction in future wage increases or bonus payments is bonus payments are envisaged (Board of Management, middle management, other employees); expected economic development: probability of a very rapid economic recovery or probability of a very slow economic recovery by the end of 2020 (in percent); assessment of the risk appetite of decision-makers in the company.

Wave 2
Change in various key figures due to the Corona crisis (data in percent) compared to the beginning of 2020: Sales, number of employees, liquidity, payables, accounts receivable, net income, accruals; estimated date from which the company´s monthly sales will be as high as they were at the time before the Corona crisis; difficulty in reducing costs as demand falls within three months; biggest hurdles to reducing costs; reason for sales increases; how could higher demand be served; biggest hurdles to increasing capacity; effect of options and discretions exercised by the company in the current period; expected date for the end of restrictions in Germany due to the Corona crisis; certainty regarding the stated date for the end of restrictions; expected closure of the company before the end of the crisis; certainty regarding the closure of the company; percentage of companies in own industry that will survive the Corona crisis by 31.12.2021; utilization of non-tax government funds or measures due to the Corona crisis (emergency aid Corona, bridging aid, short-time work and short-time work allowance, liquidity guarantees/guarantees, capital measures, refinancing of existing KfW loans, KfW special program, facilitated access to basic income support, other, none of the measures); claimed tax measures (refund of advance tax payments already made in 2020, immediate loss carryback, deferral of tax payments, suspension of enforcement measures, taxation of corporate income tax, deferral of import VAT, reintroduction of declining balance depreciation, other, none of the measures); utilization of federal government Corona aid in fall/winter 2020; satisfaction with current government aid compared to spring 2020; expectation that government funds or measures will be sufficient for the company to survive the Corona crisis; government funds/measures were or would have been most needed for short-term debt, medium- and long-term financing, repair and rehabilitation, wages and salaries, tax payments, business profits, other); (partial) repayment of one of the aid measures claimed; expected to have to repay state funds when applying; biggest hurdles in applying for and receiving state funds to weather the Corona crisis; short-term measures to cover the additional burden of the Corona crisis (e.g. reduction in future wage increases or bonuses, job cuts, etc.); investments made to comply with sanitary rules; amount invested in euros for sanitary rule compliance measures; expected change in gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 and 2021 compared to the respective previous year (in percent).

Tax incidence experiment: different study groups receive either a permanent 1%, 10%, or 25% reduction in the profit tax burden or a permanent 1%, 10%, or 25% increase in the profit tax burden: Distribution of additional funds; reason for higher investment after a tax cut (more funds available, investment more worthwhile); financing of additional tax burden from which areas; reason for lower investment after a tax increase (less funds available, investment less worthwhile).

Level of general uncertainty currently facing the company; investments currently planned for the short or medium term; proportion of sales generated in 2019 (in percent) to be invested in the short or medium term; investments planned prior to the Corona crisis that are being postponed or cancelled due to the situation; plans to hire new employees in the short or medium term; number of additional new employees planned in the short or long term; organizational confidence: Agreement with various statements on the impact of the Corona crisis on the company in fiscal 2020 with regard to: the determination of variable compensation (e.g., bonuses), in credit agreements, in communications to other external addressees (e.g., capital providers, customers, suppliers, government); effects of the Corona crisis on the company: discontinuation or interruption of medium- and long-term financial plans, more explicit and transparent communication, other effects, no effects; when the Corona crisis was or is first taken into account; assessment of the company in terms of a very high level of trust throughout the company, trust that promises will be kept, high trust of employees in managers, managers in this company trust their employees to make good decisions).

Demography: salutation, title, highest professional degree, job title, and division of the respondent.

Additionally coded were: Wave; participation in waves; German Business Panel ID; Bureau Van Dijk ID (BvDID); time of uploading response to server; interview completed; progress; interview duration; weighting factor; interview start date; interview end date; date of interview; federal state; country of company headquarters; government district; county; zip code; AGS; municipality; Experiment 1 and 2; contact agreement; consent to data linkage.