| dc.description.abstract | This study employs the Difference-in-Differences (DID) method to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on various industries and firm performance using data from 2017 to 2021. The results indicate that industries such as construction engineering, accommodation and food services, real estate, support services, arts, entertainment and recreation services, and other services were more heavily affected by the pandemic, exhibiting significantly poorer performance in terms of ROA, ROE, and Tobin′s Q. When leverage ratio and cash flow are considered as mediating variables, it is found that they only have a significant impact on the return on equity (ROE), while their effects on other performance indicators are not evident. This suggests that during the pandemic, the financial condition of companies had a greater influence on ROE compared to other indicators.
When discussing the performance differences during the pandemic based on company size (small, medium, and large), it was found that all company sizes experienced negative impacts on performance, with medium-sized companies being relatively less affected. For small and medium-sized companies, the leverage ratio as a mediating variable was negatively correlated with the ROE, while cash flow as a mediating variable showed a positive correlation with ROE. In large companies, the leverage ratio was negatively correlated with ROE during the pandemic, whereas cash flow showed a positive correlation with ROA. | en_US |