Economic uncertainty, ownership structure and small and medium enterprises performance

This paper investigates the effect of economic uncertainty on the performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) over the period 2007-2016. This paper also examines the effects of ownership structure on the relation between European Union and firm performance. We find that an increase in economic uncertainty is negatively associated with the performance of SMEs. Our results also reveal that increased economic uncertainty is associated with a lower performance level for state-owned SMEs, whereas foreign-owned SMEs can better mitigate the negative impact of on their performance than domestic-owned firms.