The Economic Effects of COVID-19 and Credit Constraints: Evidence from the Cooperatives in Vietnam

[enter Abstract Body]In this paper, we investigate the credit constraints of Vietnamese cooperatives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our main source of data is from a cooperative-level survey designed to access impact of COVID-19 outbreak on cooperative performance, combined with research of United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) and Vietnam Cooperative Alliance (VCA) in 2020. We find that smaller and under-performing cooperatives are more vulnerable as they faced enormous credit constraints. It calls for more government support to this vulnerable group of cooperatives. Especially, the credit policy design to support for cooperatives should depend on the scale and performance of Cooperatives during the pandemic to assure the vertical equality.