Managers' cultural origin and corporate response to an economic shock
利用意大利双文化地区的疫情冲击，发现不同文化背景的管理者在政府援助选择、投资决策和增长率上存在显著差异，长期导向文化背景的管理者更少依赖债务、更多投资且增长更快。
We exploit the exogenous Covid-19 shock in a bicultural area of Italy to identify cultural differences in the way companies respond to economic shocks. Firms with managers of diverse cultural backgrounds resort to different forms of government aid, diverge in their investment decisions, and have different growth rates. These findings are consistent with cultural differences in time preferences and debt aversion. Specifically, we find that the response of managers belonging to a more long-term oriented culture is characterized by a lower recourse to debt, more investments and higher growth rates. Overall, our results show that the cultural origin of managers significantly affects firms' reaction to economic shocks and real economic outcomes.