The Rise of the Walking Dead: Zombie Firms Around the World

We build a new dataset of listed and private nonfinancial zombie firms for a large set of Advanced Economies and Emerging Markets over the last two decades. We find that the share of these unproductive and unviable firms has been rising worldwide, especially since the GFC and the Covid-19 pandemic....

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Albuquerque, Bruno
Other Authors: Iyer, Roshan
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 2023
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
LEADER 03912nmm a2200865 u 4500
001 EB002176302
003 EBX01000000000000001314079
005 00000000000000.0
007 cr|||||||||||||||||||||
008 231004 ||| eng
020 |a 9798400246890 
100 1 |a Albuquerque, Bruno 
245 0 0 |a The Rise of the Walking Dead: Zombie Firms Around the World  |c Bruno Albuquerque, Roshan Iyer 
260 |a Washington, D.C.  |b International Monetary Fund  |c 2023 
300 |a 69 pages 
653 |a Asset requirements 
653 |a Credit 
653 |a Public Administration 
653 |a Finance 
653 |a Labour; income economics 
653 |a Employment; Economic theory 
653 |a Financial sector policy and analysis 
653 |a Financial statements 
653 |a Capital and Total Factor Productivity 
653 |a Cost 
653 |a Production 
653 |a Aggregate Labor Productivity 
653 |a Intangible Capital 
653 |a Money 
653 |a Labor 
653 |a Economics of specific sectors 
653 |a Currency crises 
653 |a Cycles 
653 |a Accounting 
653 |a Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models: Models with Panel Data 
653 |a Public Sector Accounting and Audits 
653 |a Liquidation 
653 |a Macroeconomics 
653 |a Public financial management (PFM) 
653 |a Financial reporting, financial statements 
653 |a Capacity 
653 |a Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis 
653 |a Capital 
653 |a Countercyclical capital buffers 
653 |a Employment 
653 |a Economic & financial crises & disasters 
653 |a Investment 
653 |a Monetary economics 
653 |a Bankruptcy 
653 |a General Financial Markets: Government Policy and Regulation 
653 |a Economics: General 
653 |a Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit: General 
653 |a Debt 
653 |a Unemployment 
653 |a Informal sector; Economics 
653 |a Financial Institutions and Services: Government Policy and Regulation 
653 |a Aggregate Human Capital 
653 |a Solvency 
653 |a Banks and Banking 
653 |a Finance, Public; Accounting 
653 |a Financial regulation and supervision 
653 |a Business Fluctuations 
653 |a Wages 
653 |a Intergenerational Income Distribution 
653 |a Money and Monetary Policy 
653 |a Finance: General 
653 |a Financial services law & regulation 
700 1 |a Iyer, Roshan 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b IMF  |a International Monetary Fund 
490 0 |a IMF Working Papers 
028 5 0 |a 10.5089/9798400246890.001 
856 4 0 |u https://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2023/125/001.2023.issue-125-en.xml?cid=534866-com-dsp-marc  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
082 0 |a 330 
520 |a We build a new dataset of listed and private nonfinancial zombie firms for a large set of Advanced Economies and Emerging Markets over the last two decades. We find that the share of these unproductive and unviable firms has been rising worldwide, especially since the GFC and the Covid-19 pandemic. We show that, perhaps surprisingly, the incidence of zombification is lower among private firms. Lower average survival rates of private firms may explain this phenomenon. We find important negative macrofinancial spillovers from zombie firms: nonzombies’ financial performance is persistently reduced in industries populated with a greater number of zombies. To mitigate these effects, we document that countries with stronger banks, and tighter macroprudential policies tend to have fewer zombies and stronger nonzombies. Strengthening the banking sector may, however, not be sufficient if insolvency frameworks are not well-prepared to deal with the restructuring or insolvency of firms