The EU's 2019 Insolvency Directive increases debt holders' control over bankruptcy reorganization proceedings, mirroring recent trends in U.S. Chapter 11. Critics, however, claim that too few insolvent firms use similar procedures to avoid liquidation. This view has remained unchallenged, as...

We examine the impact of the COVID-19 economic crisis on business and consumer bankruptcies in the United States using real-time data on the universe of filings. Historically, bankruptcies have closely tracked the business cycle and contemporaneous unemployment rates. However, this relationship...

We employ a representative sample of 80,972 Italian firms to forecast the drop in profits and the equity shortfall triggered by the COVID-19 lockdown. A 3-month lockdown generates an aggregate yearly drop in profits of about 10% of GDP, and 17% of sample firms, which employ 8.8% of the sample's...

Modelling the link between the global macro-financial factors and firms’ default probabilities constitutes an elementary part of financial sector stress-testing frameworks. Using the Global Vector Autoregressive(GVAR) model and constructing a linking satellite equation for the firm-level...

One of the important consequences to be drawn from the course of the financial crisis up to now is the insight that more attention must be paid in the future to the factors of liquidity, liquidity management and liquidity protection. That holds true for the protection of the stability of an...

We use a vector error correction model to study the long-term relationship between aggregate expected default frequency and the macroeconomic development, i.e. CPI, industry production and short-term interest rate. The model is used to forecast the median expected default frequency of the...

This paper studies the economic impact of the current global economic downturn on the household sector. Household budgets can be negatively affected by declines in nominal wages and increases in unemployment. We empirically test this effect for the small open emerging economy. As a result of a...

We study the effect of weakening creditor rights on distress risk premia via a bankruptcy reform that shifts bargaining power in financial distress toward shareholders. We find that the reform reduces risk factor loadings and returns of distressed stocks. The effect is stronger for firms with...

Resolution of non-performing loans is a key determinant of bank credit default losses. This paper analyzes macroeconomic and systematic frailty effects of the default resolution time for a sample of 17,395 defaulted bank loans in USA, Great Britain, and Canada. We find that frailties have a huge...

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has halted economic activity worldwide, hurting firms and pushing them toward bankruptcy. This paper provides a unified framework to organize the policy debate related to firm financing during the downturn, centered along four main points. First, the economic...