through WfH practices may be further mediated by international trade. Some sectors that are most amenable to remote work are also least intensive in face-to-face interactions between producers and consumers, thereby making them more tradable internationally (Avdiu and Nayyar, 2020). Espitia et al. (2021) show that exporters in sectors that are more amenable to remote work were able to better mitigate the supply shock throughout the pandemic than exporters in other sectors. Similarly, Constantinescu et al. (2022) find that exporters in sectors more amenable to remote work experienced, on average, a decline in sales of 4 percentage points less than firms in sectors less amenable to remote work. These studies examine the importance of remote work on trade at an aggregate level or on a sample of firms trading in international markets. It is also possible that globally engaged firms have greater capabilities that facilitate implementation of remote work (Constantinescu et al., 2022) either through better management (Grover and Karplus, 2021) or technology readiness (Cirera et al., 2022).

Our work fills these gaps in the literature. _First_ , it presents evidence of a specific mechanism by which digitalization affected firm resilience during the pandemic, thus providing a stronger test of causality. In doing so, we address a significant knowledge gap, particularly for MSMEs, as 66% of our sample belong to the group of micro or small firms (employing fewer than 10 individuals), while 23% are medium-sized firms (employing fewer than 50 individuals). _Second_ , it examines the differential impact of this mechanism of remote work flexibility, enabled by digitalization, across exporters and non-exporters. _Third_ , it distinguishes between the premium on remote work enabled by digital technologies derived from exporting, over and above the higher capabilities that help exporting firms self-select into global engagement and digital technologies that enable WfH.

Using four waves of Business Pulse Surveys (BPS) data for 61 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper presents novel findings on digitalization-enabled remote work as a source of resilience for firms. Our results suggest the following. _First,_ firms in sectors with greater amenability to remote work experienced a smaller adverse impact of the pandemic in countries with better digital infrastructure. _Second,_ these effects were larger, but not statistically significantly larger, for globally engaged firms vis-á-vis the domestically oriented firms. _Third,_ while the benefits of remote work in countries with better digital infrastructure accrue to both exporting and non-exporting firms, exporters in the manufacturing sector benefit more, thereby reflecting a premium to exporting, per se. These results are not observed in the services sectors, which in our sample primarily comprise firms in non-knowledge intensive services. _Fourth,_ the effects of the amenability to work remotely in countries with better digital infrastructure do not dissipate over time.

Our paper contributes to the literature on shocks and economic resilience. This spans the role of technology use, trade policy, and access to finance across previous crises. On technology, firms with higher levels of technological readiness performed better during the pandemic (Bai et al., 2020; Cirera et al., 2022; Muzi et al., 2022). Similarly, technologically diversified firms, measured by patents in different technologies, are less affected by natural disasters (Hsu et al., 2018). On trade policy, Cali et al. (2023) show that non-tariff barriers affected the ability of Indonesian exporters to respond to foreign demand shocks driven by a depreciation of the Chinese yuan. On finance, the 3