IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/cesifo/v66yi4p322-364..html

COVID-19: guaranteed Loans and Zombie Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Benedikt Zoller-Rydzek
  • Florian Keller

Abstract

Based on a survey (7–13 April 2020) we evaluate the reaction of Swiss firms towards the COVID-19 crisis. Firms show little pro-active reactions towards the crisis, but decrease their business activities. The firms in the survey report that the decline in foreign demand is the single most important reason for their deteriorating business situation. Firms that faced a more difficult business situation before the crisis are affected more severely during the crisis. Moreover, we investigate the impact of the Swiss federal loan program (Bundeshilfe) on the business activities. To this end, we develop a stylized theoretical model of financially constrained heterogeneous firms. We find that policy makers face a trade-off between immediate higher unemployment rates and long-term higher public spending. The former arises from a combination of a too strong economic impact of the COVID-19 lockdown (demand drop) and too low levels of loans provided. Nevertheless, providing (too) high levels of loans to firms creates zombie firms that are going to default in the future leading to an increase in public spending. (JEL codes: D22, D25, D84, and G33)

Suggested Citation

  • Benedikt Zoller-Rydzek & Florian Keller, 0. "COVID-19: guaranteed Loans and Zombie Firms," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 66(4), pages 322-364.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cesifo:v:66:y::i:4:p:322-364.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cesifo/ifaa014
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Huneeus, Federico & Kaboski, Joseph & Larrain, Mauricio & Schmukler, Sergio L. & Vera, Mario, 2022. "The Distribution of Crisis Credit: Effects on Firm Indebtedness and Aggregate Risk," CEPR Discussion Papers 17061, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Christoph Albert & Andrea Caggese & Beatriz González, 2020. "The short- and long-run employment impact of Covid-19 through the effects of real and financial shocks on new firms," Economics Working Papers 1739, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    3. Melcangi, Davide & Turen, Javier, 2023. "Subsidizing startups under imperfect information," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 93-109.
    4. Léon, Florian, 2023. "Public bank lending in Africa in times of crisis," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    5. Marian Nehrebecki, 2023. "Zombification in Poland in particular during COVID-19 pandemic and low interest rates," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 54(2), pages 153-190.
    6. Albert, Christoph & Caggese, Andrea & González, Beatriz & Martin-Sanchez, Victor, 2023. "Income inequality and entrepreneurship: Lessons from the 2020 COVID-19 recession," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    7. Marius Brülhart & Rafael Lalive & Tobias Lehmann & Michael Siegenthaler, 2020. "COVID-19 financial support to small businesses in Switzerland: evaluation and outlook," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 156(1), pages 1-13, December.
    8. Kochaniak, Katarzyna & Ulman, Paweł & Zajkowski, Robert, 2023. "Effectiveness of COVID-19 state aid for microenterprises in Poland," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 483-497.
    9. Lucas Marc Fuhrer & Marc-Antoine Ramelet & Jörn Tenhofen, 2020. "Firms' participation in the COVID-19 loan programme," Working Papers 2020-25, Swiss National Bank.
    10. Alejandro Fernández-Cerezo & Beatriz Gonzalez & Mario Izquierdo Peinado & Enrique Moral-Benito, 2023. "Firm-level heterogeneity in the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(42), pages 4946-4974, September.
    11. Stefano Costa & Stefano De Santis & Giovanni Dosi & Roberto Monducci & Angelica Sbardella & Maria Enrica Virgillito, 2021. "Firm responses to the pandemic crisis: sticky capabilites and widespread restructuring," LEM Papers Series 2021/48, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    12. Pitabas Mohanty & Supriti Mishra, 2021. "Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on the valuation of Indian companies using a financial model," International Journal of Emerging Markets, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 18(9), pages 2133-2151, August.
    13. Lucas Marc Fuhrer & Marc-Antoine Ramelet & Jörn Tenhofen, 2021. "Firms’ participation in the Swiss COVID-19 loan programme," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 157(1), pages 1-22, December.
    14. Jacques Bughin & Sybille Berjoan & Francis Hinterman & Yuhui Xiong, 2021. "Is this Time Different? Corporate Resilience in the Age of Covid-19," Working Papers TIMES² 2021-046, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • G33 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Bankruptcy; Liquidation

    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:oup:cesifo:v:66:y::i:4:p:322-364.. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.