State assistance to companies and work during the Covid-19 pandemic in Argentina

Abstract

Faced with the economic crisis unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Argentine government reacted by deploying an unprecedented assistance policy in terms of its scope, design and method of implementation. The aim of this article is to analyze the measures aimed at companies and formal workers deployed during the first year of the pandemic in Argentina to cushion the shock to economic activity. The authors analyze the creation and implementation of the Emergency Assistance to Work and Production program. The methodological strategy combined quantitative and qualitative analysis of official sources, regulations and a set of interviews conducted in 2021. The latter allowed the authors to recover the experience of perception of the benefits in the productive units located in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires, as well as the mediation networks involved in this policy. The findings reveal the initially massive nature of the assistance, which later gave way to the segmentation of state aid. In the case of assistance to the formal sector, post-launch adjustments were not only due to fiscal reasons, but also to the learning process of the authorities, the intervention of sectoral representatives and the ability of digital platforms to focus aid on those most in need.