COVID-19 lending support and regional levelling up: evidence from UK loan guarantee schemes

The economic consequences of COVID-19 were severe with restricted economic activity generating a liquidity crisis for many firms. To address the systemic impact of this liquidity shock, governments around the world rapidly introduced a range of loan guarantee schemes. In the UK, more than 1 million businesses accessed these schemes. Using a novel, comprehensive dataset, this paper explores the regional distribution of access to these schemes and how this was mediated by regional differences in lending institution. Our results show that while the schemes were national and unaligned with regional policy, access favoured firms in poorer regions, and regional differences in lending institutions had a significant influence on the nature of lending.