IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedpbr/y2013iq2p1-9.html

Debt overhang: why recovery from a financial crisis can be slow

Author

Listed:
  • Satyajit Chatterjee

Abstract

A particularly troublesome feature of the most recent recession has been the painfully slow growth in employment during the recovery. For employment growth to accelerate, economists believe that firms need to invest in new productive capacity. This view is typically couched in terms of the need to reallocate jobs away from crisis-depressed sectors into other sectors. But doing so requires an expansion in productive capacity in those other sectors. Tepid employment growth is a sign that this investment in new productive capacity has not been forthcoming. One reason for the reluctance to undertake productive investment following a financial crisis is debt overhang, a situation in which the existence of prior debt acts as a disincentive to new investment. There are other explanations that, to varying degrees, account for the current reluctance of U.S. corporations to invest. In this article, Satyajit Chatterjee focuses on the debt overhang problem.

Suggested Citation

  • Satyajit Chatterjee, 2013. "Debt overhang: why recovery from a financial crisis can be slow," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Q2, pages 1-9.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpbr:y:2013:i:q2:p:1-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/frbp/assets/economy/articles/business-review/2013/q2/brq213_debt-overhang-why-recovery-from-financial-crisis-can-be-slow.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "The Aftermath of Financial Crises," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 466-472, May.
    2. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Varieties of Crises and Their Dates," Introductory Chapters, in: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press.
    3. Filippo Occhino, 2010. "Is debt overhang causing firms to underinvest?," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Jul.
    4. Lamont, Owen, 1995. "Corporate-Debt Overhang and Macroeconomic Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1106-1117, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Willem Vanlaer & Wim Marneffe & Lode Vereeck & Johan Vanovertveldt, 2015. "Does debt predict growth? An empirical analysis of the relationship between total debt and economic output," European Journal of Government and Economics, Europa Grande, vol. 4(2), pages 79-103, December.
    2. Mattia Osvaldo Picarelli & Willem Vanlaer & Wim Marneffe, 2019. "Does Public Debt Produce a Crowding Out Effect for Public Investment in the EU?," Working Papers 36, European Stability Mechanism.
    3. Puonti, Päivi, 2022. "Public Debt and Economic Growth," ETLA Reports 127, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chung‐Hua Shen & Hsing‐Hua Hsu, 2022. "The determinants of Asian banking crises—Application of the panel threshold logit model," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 248-277, March.
    2. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Wenhao Li, 2025. "Dissecting Mechanisms of Financial Crises: Intermediation and Sentiment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 133(3), pages 935-985.
    3. Mitze, Timo & Matz, Florian, 2015. "Public debt and growth in German federal states: What can Europe learn?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 208-228.
    4. Bjørnskov, Christian, 2016. "Economic freedom and economic crises," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 11-23.
    5. Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem & Papaioannou, Elias & Perri, Fabrizio, 2013. "Global banks and crisis transmission," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 495-510.
    6. Charles Bean, 2010. "Joseph Schumpeter Lecture The Great Moderation, The Great Panic, and The Great Contraction," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(2-3), pages 289-325, 04-05.
    7. Colombo, Emilio & Onnis, Luisanna & Tirelli, Patrizio, 2016. "Shadow economies at times of banking crises: Empirics and theory," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 180-190.
    8. Nicu Sprincean, 2019. "Early Warning Indicators For Macrofinancial Activity In Romania," Review of Economic and Business Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 23, pages 137-162, June.
    9. Claudeci Da Silva & Hugo Agudelo Murillo & Joaquim Miguel Couto, 2014. "Early Warning Systems: Análise De Ummodelo Probit De Contágio De Crise Dos Estados Unidos Para O Brasil(2000-2010)," Anais do XL Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 40th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 110, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    10. Schularick, Moritz, 2012. "Public debt and financial crises in the twentieth century," Discussion Papers 2012/1, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    11. Mr. Stijn Claessens & Mr. Ayhan Kose, 2013. "Financial Crises Explanations, Types, and Implications," IMF Working Papers 2013/028, International Monetary Fund.
    12. André K. Anundsen & Karsten Gerdrup & Frank Hansen & Kasper Kragh‐Sørensen, 2016. "Bubbles and Crises: The Role of House Prices and Credit," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(7), pages 1291-1311, November.
    13. Yuan, Jun & Yang, Liuyong & Xu, Qi, 2025. "The real side of black swans: Tail risk and corporate investment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    14. Keiichiro KOBAYASHI & Tomoyuki NAKAJIMA & Shuhei TAKAHASHI, 2020. "Lack of debt restructuring and lender's credibility － A theory of nonperforming loans －," CIGS Working Paper Series 20-002E, The Canon Institute for Global Studies.
    15. Niels Gilbert & Jeroen Hessel & Silvie Verkaart, 2013. "Towards a Stable Monetary Union: What Role for Eurobonds?," DNB Working Papers 379, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    16. Keiichiro KOBAYASHI & Daichi SHIRAI, 2024. "Debt-Ridden Borrowers and Persistent Stagnation," CIGS Working Paper Series 23-001E, The Canon Institute for Global Studies.
    17. Rafiq, Shuddhasattwa, 2022. "How did house and stock prices respond to different crisis episodes since the 1870s?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    18. Levy, Daniel & Mayer, Tamir & Raviv, Alon, 2022. "Economists in the 2008 Financial Crisis: Slow to See, Fast to Act," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Forthcomi.
    19. Maria Pascal (Andriescu), 2012. "An Overview on Sovereign Debt Evolution in the World," Ovidius University Annals, Economic Sciences Series, Ovidius University of Constantza, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 0(1), pages 1582-1587, May.
    20. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2010. "Growth in a Time of Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 573-578, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedpbr:y:2013:i:q2:p:1-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Beth Paul (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbphus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.