IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cbi/fsnote/8-fs-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wage subsidy utilisation by Irish companies

Author

Listed:
  • Lambert, Derek

    (Central Bank of Ireland)

  • McGeever, Niall

    (Central Bank of Ireland)

  • O'Brien, Eoghan

    (Central Bank of Ireland)

Abstract

We use novel company-level data to study wage subsidy utilisation during the COVID-19 pandemic and measure the exposure of the financial sector to subsidy claimants. We show that there were three claimaint cohorts: those that claimed in 2020 only, those that transitioned off the subsidy during 2021, and those that were persistent claimants throughout the pandemic. A large share of companies in the Accommodation & Food and Other Services sectors were persistent claimants, implying a large and persistent decline in turnover prior to the 2022 recovery. Persistent claimants of the subsidy had higher leverage and lower liquidity prior to the pandemic, indicating greater vulnerability coming into the crisis period. We further estimate that 9 per cent of Irish company loan balances at Irish retail banks are owed by borrowers who were still claiming the wage subsidy in 2022Q1, while 24 per cent of balances are owed by borrowers who were claiming the subsidy in mid-2020. The equivalent figures for non-bank lenders are 7 per cent and 32 per cent, respectively.

Suggested Citation

  • Lambert, Derek & McGeever, Niall & O'Brien, Eoghan, 2022. "Wage subsidy utilisation by Irish companies," Financial Stability Notes 8/FS/22, Central Bank of Ireland.
  • Handle: RePEc:cbi:fsnote:8/fs/22
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.centralbank.ie/docs/default-source/publications/financial-stability-notes/wage-subsidy-utilisation-by-irish-companies.pdf?sfvrsn=707a951d_5
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Duignan, David & McGeever, Niall, 2020. "Which firms took COVID-19 payment breaks?," Financial Stability Notes 6/FS/20, Central Bank of Ireland.
    2. McCann, Fergal & McGeever, Niall & Yao, Fang, 2021. "SME viability in the COVID-19 recovery," Research Technical Papers 9/RT/21, Central Bank of Ireland.
    3. Luís M B Cabral & José Mata, 2003. "On the Evolution of the Firm Size Distribution: Facts and Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1075-1090, September.
    4. Conor O'Toole & Fergal McCann & Martina Lawless & Janez Kren & John McQuinn, 2021. "New Survey Evidence on COVID-19 and Irish SMEs: Measuring the Impact and Policy Response," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 52(2), pages 107-138.
    5. Durante, Elena & McGeever, Niall, 2022. "SME Credit Conditions in the Pandemic Recovery," Financial Stability Notes 2/FS/22, Central Bank of Ireland.
    6. Robin Greenwood & Benjamin Iverson & David Thesmar, 2020. "Sizing up Corporate Restructuring in the COVID Crisis," NBER Working Papers 28104, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. McCann, Fergal & McGeever, Niall, 2022. "Enterprise policy issues for distressed businesses following the unwinding of pandemic supports," Financial Stability Notes 9/FS/22, Central Bank of Ireland.
    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. McCann, Fergal & McGeever, Niall, 2022. "Enterprise policy issues for distressed businesses following the unwinding of pandemic supports," Financial Stability Notes 9/FS/22, Central Bank of Ireland.

    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. McCann, Fergal & McGeever, Niall, 2022. "Enterprise policy issues for distressed businesses following the unwinding of pandemic supports," Financial Stability Notes 9/FS/22, Central Bank of Ireland.
    2. Durante, Elena & McGeever, Niall, 2022. "SME Credit Conditions in the Pandemic Recovery," Financial Stability Notes 2/FS/22, Central Bank of Ireland.
    3. Carreira, Carlos & Teixeira, Paulino, 2011. "Entry and exit as a source of aggregate productivity growth in two alternative technological regimes," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 135-150, June.
    4. Kim Huynh & David Jacho-Chávez & Robert Petrunia & Marcel Voia, 2015. "A nonparametric analysis of firm size, leverage and labour productivity distribution dynamics," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 337-360, February.
    5. Alexandre Janiak & Paulo Santos Monteiro, 2011. "Inflation and Welfare in Long‐Run Equilibrium with Firm Dynamics," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(5), pages 795-834, August.
    6. de Andrés, Pablo & Gimeno, Ricardo & Mateos de Cabo, Ruth, 2021. "The gender gap in bank credit access," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    7. repec:lic:licosd:42821 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Stephane Verani, 2018. "Aggregate Consequences of Dynamic Credit Relationships," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 29, pages 44-67, July.
    9. Rui Baptista & Joana Mendonça, 2010. "Proximity to knowledge sources and the location of knowledge-based start-ups," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 45(1), pages 5-29, August.
    10. Ayyagari, Meghana & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2014. "Does local financial development matter for firm lifecycle in India ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7008, The World Bank.
    11. Antoine Gervais, 2015. "Product quality, firm heterogeneity and trade liberalization," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 523-541, June.
    12. Xiao, Junji & Ju, Heng, 2016. "The determinants of dealership structure: Empirical analysis of the Chinese auto market," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 961-981.
    13. Alexander Monge-Naranjo, 2009. "Entrepreneurship and firm heterogeneity with limited enforcement," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 465-494, June.
    14. Latchezar Popov, 2014. "Enforcement frictions and optimal lending contracts," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 57(1), pages 195-222, September.
    15. Bonfiglioli, Alessandra & Crinò, Rosario & Gancia, Gino, 2025. "Firms and economic performance: A view from trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    16. Kerr, William R. & Nanda, Ramana, 2009. "Democratizing entry: Banking deregulations, financing constraints, and entrepreneurship," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 124-149, October.
    17. Luca David Opromolla & Michele Dell'Era, 2018. "A General Equilibrium Theory of Occupational Choice under Optimistic Beliefs about Entrepreneurial Ability," Working Papers w201822, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    18. Pedro Gomes & Zoe Kuehn, 2017. "Human capital and the size distribution of firms," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 164-179, October.
    19. Didier, Tatiana & Schmukler, Sergio L., 2013. "The financing and growth of firms in China and India: Evidence from capital markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 111-137.
    20. Munch, Jakob R. & Nguyen, Daniel X., 2014. "Decomposing firm-level sales variation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 317-334.
    21. Paulo Nunes & Zélia Serrasqueiro & João Leitão, 2013. "Assessing the nonlinear nature of the effects of R&D intensity on growth of SMEs: a dynamic panel data approach," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 97-128, January.

    More about this item

    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:cbi:fsnote:8/fs/22. 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: Fiona Farrelly (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cbigvie.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.