The paper uses both macro- and micro-level data to assess how has the financial health of the Irish non-financial corporate (NFC) sector changed in the post financial crisis period. The analysis suggests that vulnerabilities have generally declined in recent years, but the NFC sector and...

Nonviable 'zombie' firms have become a key concern in China. Using novel firm-level industrial survey data, this paper illustrates the central role of zombies and their strong linkages with state owned enterprises (SOEs) in contributing to debt vulnerabilities and low productivity. As a group,...

This paper analyzes the potential risks and vulnerabilities of non-financial corporates in Latin America and Canada. We quantify the impact of company-specific, countryspecific, and global factors in driving corporate spreads. Overall, we found that all these factors play a role in explaining...

This paper presents new evidence on the empirical relationship between bank solvency and funding costs. Building on a newly constructed dataset drawing on supervisory data for 54 large banks from six advanced countries over 2004-2013, we use a simultaneous equation approach to estimate the...

This paper studies the determinants of shifts in debt composition among EM non-financial corporates. We show that institutions and macro fundamentals create an enabling environment for bond market development. During the recent boom episode, however, global cyclical factors accounted for most of...

We examine the effect of bank capital levels on firm investment drawing on a sample of 11,106 non-financial firms from 2007 to 2013 in 16 advanced economies. We examine two measures of bank capital adequacy, the Tier 1 ratio and a simple leverage ratio, and find that firms with larger external...

The global economy is in the midst of an unprecedented slump caused by the coronavirus pandemic. This systemic risk like no other at a time of record-breaking debt levels, especially among nonfinancial firms across the world, could exacerbate corporate vulnerabilities, deepen macro-financial...

The global economy is in the midst of an unprecedented slump caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. To assess the likely evolution of nonfinancial corporate performance going forward, this paper investigates empirically the impact of past pandemics using firm-level data on more than 537,000 companies...

The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) triggered a sharp contraction of economic activity across Asia and the Pacific. Policymakers adopted a 'whatever it takes' approach in their initial response, relying mainly on liquidity support to help firms survive the shock. This paper discusses how the...

We study the impact of the COVID-19 recession on capital structure of publicly listed U.S. firms. Our estimates suggest leverage (Net Debt/Asset) decreased by 5.3 percentage points from the pre-shock mean of 19.6 percent, while debt maturity increased moderately. This de-leveraging effect is...