Assessing intellectual capital performance of banks during COVID-19: Evidence from China and Pakistan

Using quarterly data from 2019Q1 to 2020Q3, this study aims to examine the impact of COVID-19 on intellectual capital (IC) performance of banks operating in China and Pakistan. Based on the data of 34 Chinese and 41 Pakistani banks, this study applies the fixed effect method to examine this relationship, and the value added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) model is used to measure IC performance. The study shows a negative but insignificant influence of COVID-19 on IC performance of the banking sector in both countries. Likewise, the findings exhibit that IC components show resilience against COVID-19 and are slightly influenced by this crisis. The results are also consistent in robustness check. The cross-country comparison suggests that the performance of IC components in the Pakistani banking sector is higher compared to China. This is the first study that examines the impact of COVID-19 on IC performance of banks, and it might provide insights regarding the influence of crises such as COVID-19 on IC performance of banks in emerging economies.