Blog post

Corporate insolvencies during COVID-19: keeping calm before the storm

Measures in major economies have protected companies from COVID-19 related insolvency, but have also protected weak firms. Nevertheless, support shoul

Publishing date
07 January 2021

This blog was published in German on Makronom.

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Historically, economic downturns are associated with increases in business insolvencies. Figure 1 shows that during the Great Financial Crisis, insolvencies increased, but in the current, deeper recession, such an increase has not (yet) materialised. In fact, the rate of insolvencies has been remarkably stable or has even dropped over the course of the COVID-19 crisis.

Beyond the massive policy support in response to COVID-19 (accommodative monetary policy, direct liquidity relief to the private sector, government-financed job retention programmes, debt moratoria, credit guarantee programmes and direct grants to businesses), policymakers have swiftly enacted temporary legal changes to their bankruptcy rules. The intention has been to reduce the number of companies starting insolvency procedures and to avoid the overwhelming of court capacities. Table 1 summarises these amendments for major countries.

One measure has been suspension of the duty to file for insolvency, which was enacted in Germany, France and Spain in March. While the suspension has been extended twice in Germany, it expired in France on 24 August and temporarily in Spain during summer 2020 as the state of emergency was lifted. In the United Kingdom, firms in financial distress can enter a company moratorium of 20 business days, which provides a payment holiday and protection from creditor enforcement, and during which companies can develop a restructuring plan to pursue outside a formal insolvency process. The UK government furthermore restricted the use of winding-up petitions in order to protect commercial tenants from rent collection by landlords. Finally, the United States increased access to a streamlined restructuring process for small businesses by raising the debt-limit eligibility threshold of the Small Business Reorganization Act. While the total number of firms entering insolvency proceedings has stayed constant in the US during the pandemic, the number of restructurings has increased, while liquidations have declined.

This unprecedented government support for the private sector has major economic implications.

These measures were necessary to protect viable companies from the shock. The lockdowns have hit sectors that were viable before the crisis, that were not engaged in excessive risk taking, and that should rebound quickly once the pandemic is over. Moreover, a surge in insolvencies could have had devastating macroeconomic ripple effects. For every firm that closes, workers lose their jobs, resulting in lower labour tax income, higher unemployment benefit expenses and lower household consumption. Research shows that unemployment increases threefold if a drop in GDP is accompanied by an increase in corporate bankruptcies of a similar magnitude. In recessions like the current one, when insolvencies are concentrated in specific sectors, unemployment is even more persistent because sector-specific human capital slows labour reallocation. Finally, withdrawing government support could tighten credit markets. The legislative amendments that are currently active not only inhibit the registration of new insolvencies, but also delay the progress of ongoing procedures, meaning that losses from non-performing loans do not yet formally appear on banks’ balance sheets. A wave of corporate defaults could strain banks' loss-absorbing capacity and lead to tighter financing conditions, resulting in a growing share of firms without access to liquidity, and potentially triggering a vicious circle.

But measures taken to avoid the liquidation of viable firms also create opportunities for unviable firms to survive. As a result, valuable resources could be inefficiently allocated away from more productive businesses in the economy, slowing growth in the future. This problem is not new, and the debate on the zombification of some parts of the European economy started well before the COVID-19 crisis. This has been amplified by the crisis but the main problem is that the unusual characteristics of this crisis make it extremely difficult to distinguish viable from unviable businesses in distress. A July 2020 study from France shows that the share of highly-productive companies among those facing insolvency is disproportionately high. Withdrawing government support too early risks pushing also those viable yet illiquid companies out of business.

Policymakers thus face a difficult trade-off. Supporting unproductive and unviable firms for too long could slow economic growth in the future, while withdrawing support prematurely will deepen the ongoing recession, potentially leaving lasting scars on the economy. Attempting to target support by differentiating real zombies from those firms that would be viable in the absence of the pandemic is a difficult and costly task with high downside risk.

As Europe faces a second and possibly third wave of the pandemic, policymakers should therefore maintain the support as long as necessary. The measures have been effective so far in preventing mass unemployment (current measures in Europe to prevent insolvencies can by themselves save 15% of jobs, according to the International Monetary Fund) and enabled the partial, but unexpectedly strong, economic rebound during the third quarter of 2020.

But corporate debt levels continue to rise. In the euro area, corporate debt rose by 7.5 percentage points of GDP between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2020. In the US it rose by 10 points. Policymakers need to prepare for the wave of insolvencies that could quickly arrive once the current measures are lifted.

In Europe, persistent inefficiencies in insolvency procedures should be addressed. The average recovery rate of insolvency procedures in the EU is, at 62 cents on the dollar, far below that of the UK (85 ct/$) or the US (81 ct/$). Findings from the European Banking Authority suggest that recovery rates in Europe might be even lower, with estimates ranging from 34 ct/$ to 40 ct/$ for SMEs and corporates. In addition, insolvency procedures in the EU take on average twice as long as in the UK and the US, and many frameworks in the EU favour liquidation, meaning the dissolution of the business and sale of its assets, over restructuring, thus failing to protect remaining entrepreneurial value. This is especially pronounced in central and eastern Europe, where only Slovenia and the Czech Republic are considered to have minimally burdensome insolvency procedures according to the World Bank.

By reforming insolvency processes, policymakers can tackle two critical impediments to economic growth in the years of recovery. In general, the focus should be on amendments that simplify procedures, expand court capacity and address the bureaucratic load. More specifically, ensuring that existing laws don’t punish business failure excessively would strengthen market selection by facilitating firm exit and entry. Legislators should also reduce barriers to corporate restructuring, for example by allowing early restructuring or creating cheaper procedures for SMEs, to avoid liquidations and the ensuing loss of business value. At EU level, policymakers should push for progress on the Restructuring and Second Chance Directive, which aims to increase the coherence of insolvency procedures in EU countries and would introduce targeted measures to improve efficiency of insolvency procedures in the bloc. This would benefit the economy by promoting investment, innovation and economic growth, and would also represent an important step towards a capital markets union, notwithstanding that these structural changes will take time and are unlikely to have immediate effect.

Recommended citation:

Claeys, G., M. Hoffmann and G. Wolff (2021) 'Corporate insolvencies during COVID-19: keeping calm before the storm', Bruegel Blog, 7 January

About the authors

  • Guntram B. Wolff

    Guntram Wolff is a Senior fellow at Bruegel. He is also a Professor of Economics at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). 

    From 2022-2024, he was the Director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and from 2013-22 the director of Bruegel. Over his career, he has contributed to research on European political economy, climate policy, geoeconomics, macroeconomics and foreign affairs. His work was published in academic journals such as Nature, Science, Research Policy, Energy Policy, Climate Policy, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Banking and Finance. His co-authored book “The macroeconomics of decarbonization” is published in Cambridge University Press.

    An experienced public adviser, he has been testifying twice a year since 2013 to the informal European finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ ECOFIN Council meeting on a large variety of topics. He also regularly testifies to the European Parliament, the Bundestag and speaks to corporate boards. In 2020, Business Insider ranked him one of the 28 most influential “power players” in Europe. From 2012-16, he was a member of the French prime minister’s Conseil d’Analyse Economique. In 2018, then IMF managing director Christine Lagarde appointed him to the external advisory group on surveillance to review the Fund’s priorities. In 2021, he was appointed member and co-director to the G20 High level independent panel on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response under the co-chairs Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Lawrence H. Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. From 2013-22, he was an advisor to the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth. He is a member of the Bulgarian Council of Economic Analysis, the European Council on Foreign Affairs and advisory board of Elcano. He is also a fellow at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

    Guntram joined Bruegel from the European Commission, where he worked on the macroeconomics of the euro area and the reform of euro area governance. Prior to joining the Commission, he worked in the research department at the Bundesbank, which he joined after completing his PhD in economics at the University of Bonn. He also worked as an external adviser to the International Monetary Fund. He is fluent in German, English, and French. His work is regularly published and cited in leading media. 

  • Grégory Claeys

    Grégory Claeys, a French and Spanish citizen, joined Bruegel as a research fellow in February 2014, before being appointed senior fellow in April 2020.

    Grégory Claeys is currently on leave for public service, serving as Director of the Economics Department of France Stratégie, the think tank and policy planning institution of the French government, since November 2023.

    Grégory’s research interests include international macroeconomics and finance, central banking and European governance. From 2006 to 2009 Grégory worked as a macroeconomist in the Economic Research Department of the French bank Crédit Agricole. Prior to joining Bruegel he also conducted research in several capacities, including as a visiting researcher in the Financial Research Department of the Central Bank of Chile in Santiago, and in the Economic Department of the French Embassy in Chicago. Grégory is also an Associate Professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris where he is teaching macroeconomics in the Master of Finance. He previously taught undergraduate macroeconomics at Sciences Po in Paris.

    He holds a PhD in Economics from the European University Institute (Florence), an MSc in economics from Paris X University and an MSc in management from HEC (Paris).

    Grégory is fluent in English, French and Spanish.

     

  • Mia Hoffmann

    Mia worked at Bruegel as a Research Analyst until August 2022. She studied International Economics (BSc) at University of Tuebingen, including one semester at the Università di Torino, and holds a Master’s degree in Economics from Lund University.

    Before joining Bruegel Mia worked in the international development sector. As a Bluebook Trainee she worked at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development and previously interned at the German development bank DEG, working on credit analysis and restructuring.

    Her previous research focused on the impact of migration on economic growth and analyzed the effects of childcare policy on household bargaining. Her current research interests involve issues related to trade, labor markets and inequality.

    Mia is a German native speaker, is fluent in English and has good working knowledge in French and Italian.

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