Open AccessCOVID-19 economic response measures and entrepreneurial activities: a study of micro-enterprises in Nigeria
Author(s) -
Franca Obi Chinazor
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
vestnik astrahanskogo gosudarstvennogo tehničeskogo universiteta. seriâ: èkonomika
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2309-9798
pISSN - 2073-5537
DOI - 10.24143/2073-5537-2021-2-140-156
Subject(s) - recession , government (linguistics) , business , entrepreneurship , financial crisis , covid-19 , micro enterprise , economic growth , finance , economics , medicine , linguistics , philosophy , disease , pathology , keynesian economics , infectious disease (medical specialty) , macroeconomics
Nigeria witnessed an economic downturn in 2009 due to the global financial crisis and in 2016 as a result of the global oil price crash. The Nigerian economy was resuscitating from the economic recession before the emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic and its curtail measures. Most private and government firms laid-off their workers, while others had their staff salaries. The sustaining business operations in this era may be extremely difficult due to lack of funds for self-employment, start-up ventures, innovations or new market opportunities. With the help of the Central Bank the government rowed out some monetary and fiscal measures referred to in the study as Economic Responses Measures (ERM). The aim of the study is to examine the relationship between COVID-19 ERM and the Entrepreneurial Activity (EA) of micro business. It has been stated that COVID-19 ERM provide innovations, self-employment, start-up and new market creation activities of micro-enterprises in Nigeria. An exploratory survey was done on 294 randomly selected samples from micro-enterprises (retail, ICT, manufacturing and artisans) across the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. The result proves empirically that COVID-19 ERM does not have a significantly positive relationship with the EA of micro-businesses in Nigeria. The implication of this finding therefore suggests that many micro-businesses may not have accessed these ERM or do not embark in EA. There is highlighted the importance of government support to micro-businesses and also provided new dimensions for the measures of micro-business EA.