Evaluating the impact of the state support programs on the firm-level outcomes in Georgia. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of the state support program of SMEs on the firm-level outcomes in Georgia. The Georgian government’s SME financing procedure offers just such a unique opportunity for a quasi-natural experiment, which allows the credible use of local/nonparametric regression discontinuity methodology (RDD).

The Georgian Business Confidence Index (BCI) continues to decline, albeit at a slower pace. The first-quarter decrease in the Index was mostly driven by a significant decline in past performance.