Zombies at Large? Corporate Debt Overhang and the Macroeconomy

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jorda, Oscar; Kornejew, Martin; Schularick, Moritz; Taylor, Alan M.
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - San Francisco; University of California System; University of California Davis; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; University of Bonn; Institut d'Etudes Politiques Paris (Sciences Po); National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF FINANCIAL STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0893-9454
• DOI: 10.1093/rfs/hhac018
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 4561
• 关键词: FINANCIAL CRISES EVIDENCE; leverage; credit; INVESTMENT; POLICY; firm; reorganization; RENEGOTIATION; determinants; ENFORCEMENT

摘要

Debt overhang is associated with higher financial fragility and slower recovery from recession. However, while household credit booms have been extensively documented to have this property, we find that corporate debt does not fit the same pattern. Newly collected data on nonfinancial business liabilities for 18 advanced economies over the past 150 years shows that, in the aggregate, greater frictions in corporate debt resolution make for slower recoveries, with weak investment and more persistent zombie firms and that this is an important factor in explaining the difference in outcomes relative to household credit booms.