How internet helped firms cope with COVID-19

Since 2020, the stringent distancing measures put in place around the world in response to the spread of the COVID virus have highlighted the vital importance of digital technologies for maintaining economic exchanges and social interactions. As a result, increased digitalization1 may have softened the deleterious impact of containment measures on economic activity and human capital in both developed and developing countries (Guillaumont, 2020; Ma et al, 2021, Chiou and Tucker, 2020). By reducing transaction costs and informational asymmetries (Aker, 2017; Goldfarb and Tucker, 2019), digital technologies are expected to boost firms’ organizational and production capacities, to improve goods, services and financial markets functioning, to correct government failures, and therefore, to help them coping with the COVID crisis.