Narrow Your Choices

Refine By Countries

Refine By Series

Refine By Language

Refine By Date

—

Refine By IMF Taxonomy

Refine By JEL Taxonomy

Refine by LOC Taxonomy

Refine By THEMA Taxonomy

  • Print
  • Save

Business and Economics > Production and Operations Management

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 13 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • Corporate Finance and Governance: General x
Clear All Modify Search
Cover IMF Working Papers
Firm Performance, Business Supports and Zombification over the Pandemic
Alexander Amundsen
,
Amélie Lafrance-Cooke
, and
Danny Leung
Did the COVID-19 pandemic zombify the economy? Commentators have pointed to the pandemic and related business support measures potentially fueling zombification. Using administrative data covering the universe of Canadian firms, we find a broad-based decline in the share of zombie firms across industries relative to pre-pandemic levels. Whereas business support measures kept firms alive and operating as non-zombie firms, the decline in the zombie firm share was caused by would-be zombie firms exiting, indicative of the pandemic’s cleansing effects. As a consequence, while aggregate labour productivity worsened in Canada over the pandemic, it was not driven by zombie firms.
Keywords:
Zombie Firms; Aggregate Productivity; COVID-19 Pandemic; zombie firm; business support measure; cleansing effect; firm performance; exit component; COVID-19; Productivity; Employment; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
A Bitter Aftertaste: How State Aid Affects Recipient Firms and Their Competitors in Europe
Luis Brandão-Marques
and
Hasan H Toprak
Industrial policy is once again at the forefront of the policy debate around the world. However, state aid is a contentious issue in the European Union given the need to maintain a level playing in its single market. This paper estimates the effects of state aid between 2016 and 2023 on listed nonfinancial firms in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom (until 2020) using a high-frequency identification approach to address endogeneity. It finds that firms that receive state aid increase employment and revenue, but not investment or labor productivity. Moreover, it finds that there are adverse spillover effects to competing firms that significantly undo any positive own effects. These findings suggest that, should there be a case for providing state aid to firms in the European Union, this should be done at the European level instead of the member state level to mitigate adverse spillovers. Pooling resources and competitively allocating aid across the Union could preserve market competition, encourage firm entry, and ensure a more efficient distribution of funds.
Keywords:
Industrial policy; firm performance; state aid; spillovers; recipient firm; government intervention; effects of State; net impact; government failure; Employment; Productivity; Competition; Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Hungary: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Selected Issues paper presents monetary policy analysis with a quarterly projection model (QPM) in Hungary. The standard QPM is adapted to reflect some specific features of the Hungarian economy and post-Covid set of shocks. Inflation is modelled in greater sectoral detail, including the separation of core goods and services, to capture differences in their drivers and dynamics and to model spillovers of shocks from one sector to another. Following a period of large interest rate reductions, the projections from the QPM suggest that the next phase of monetary policy normalization should proceed cautiously and more gradually. Results from the model should be used alongside other forms of analysis and expert judgement in determining the optimal path of monetary policy. Data should be watched keenly to assess the realism of the model’s projections.
Keywords:
income convergence; E. impulse response; convergence in Hungary; beta convergence; monetary policy shock; Inflation; Corporate sector; Income; Income inequality; Global; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Unpacking Impact of COVID-19 on Vietnamese Firms: Evidence from a Novel Survey
Ms. Era Dabla-Norris
,
Anh Thi Ngoc Nguyen
,
Ms. Yuanyan S Zhang
,
Thuy Dinh Pham
,
Nga Huong Phi
,
Duong Thuy Nguyen
, and
Tuan Danh Duong
Using a unique representative panel survey of Vietnamese enterprises in 2020, we find that the pandemic and associated government support package had a heterogenous impact across firms. The government support package, particularly tax cuts and deferrals, helped alleviate short term stress, but tight ineligibility criteria and cumbersome procedures impacted take-up. Econometric analysis suggests that the likelihood of accessing support was associated with firm size, with larger firms more likely to receive support compared to smaller firms, even after controlling for sector, firm ownership and financial health. Credit support was effective in alleviating liquidity constraints and allaying firm pessimism only for large firms. Interestingly, firms experiencing sales losses and those with lower pre-crisis productivity were more likely to resort to digitalization, suggesting that the pandemic could help narrow productivity gaps.
Keywords:
COVID-19; policy support; firms’ coping strategies; digitalization; coping strategy; government support package; credit support; firm pessimism; self-coping strategy; Credit; Labor costs; Productivity; Europe; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
SME Financial Inclusion for Sustained Growth in the Middle East and Central Asia
Mishel Ghassibe
,
Maximiliano Appendino
, and
Samir Elsadek Mahmoudi
This paper offers empirical evidence that greater financial inclusion of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can promote higher economic growth and employment, especially in the Middle East and Central Asia regions. First, we show that countries with higher SME financial inclusion exhibit more effective monetary policy transmission and tax collection. Second, we find substantial employment and labor productivity growth gains at the firm level from access to credit, gains that are higher for SMEs. We also obtain evidence of a substantial positive impact on SME employment and labor productivity growth from improved credit bureau coverage and insolvency regimes. Finally, cross-country aggregate evidence confirms the employment and growth gains from SME financial inclusion, which appear larger in the Middle East and Central Asia than in other regions.
Keywords:
WP; SME financial inclusion; Small and Medium Sized Enterprises; Financial Inclusion; Economic Growth; monetary policy transmission; growth gain; output gap; SME Financial inclusion index; labor productivity gain; SME employment; employment growth; Small and medium enterprises; Labor productivity; Productivity; Employment; Middle East and Central Asia
Cover IMF Working Papers
Productivity Drag from Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Japan
Mariana Colacelli
and
Mr. Gee Hee Hong
Productivity growth in Japan, as in most advanced economies, has moderated. This paper finds supportive evidence for the important role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in explaining Japan’s modest productivity growth. Results show a substantial dispersion in firm-level productivity growth across sectors and even across firms within the same sector. SMEs, on average, exhibit lower productivity growth than non-SMEs in Japan, with smaller and older SMEs showing particularly low productivity growth. Estimates suggest that boosting productivity growth in all of the worst-performing SMEs could improve overall productivity growth by up to 1.8 percentage points. The SME credit guarantee system, SME financing constraints, demographic factors, and lack of intangible capital investment are discussed as contributors to the slow productivity growth of Japan’s small and old SMEs.
Keywords:
WP; productivity growth; firm; SME; SMEs Labor Productivity Growth; Productivity; Firm Dynamics; Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises; Intangible Investment; SME credit guarantee system; financing constraint; SME firm; SME business manager succession; SME credit guarantee program; SME guarantee; laggard SME; exit rate; SME characteristic; sluggish SME productivity growth; Labor productivity; Small and medium enterprises; Intangible capital; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Granular Origins of Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Europe
Mr. Christian H Ebeke
and
Kodjovi M. Eklou
This paper investigates the microeconomic origins of aggregate economic fluctuations in Europe. It examines the relevance of idiosyncratic shocks at the top 100 large firms (the granular shocks) in explaining aggregate macroeconomic fluctuations. The paper also assesses the strength of spillovers from large firms onto SMEs. Using firm-level data covering over 14 million firms and eight european countries (Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain), we find that: (i) 40 percent of the variance in GDP in the sample can be explained by idiosyncratic shocks at large firms; (ii) positive granular shocks at large firms spill over to domestic SMEs’ output, especially if SMEs’ balance sheets are healthy and if SMEs belong to the services and manufacturing sectors.
Keywords:
WP; productivity growth; Idiosyncratic shocks; Aggregate fluctuations; SMEs; Balance Sheets; large firm; firm size distribution; productivity shock; firms sales; Productivity; Small and medium enterprises; Labor productivity; Spillovers; Services sector; Global; Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Euro Area Policies: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Selected Issues paper discusses the impact of workforce aging on productivity in the euro area. The euro area population has aged considerably over the past few decades, and the process is expected to accelerate in the years ahead. At the same time, labor productivity growth in the euro area has been sluggish, posing risks to long-term growth prospects. It is estimated that workforce aging could significantly retard total factor productivity (TFP) growth over the medium to long term. Given current demographic projections from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the aging of the workforce in the euro area could lower TFP growth by about 0.2 percentage points each year between 2014 and 2035. Appropriate policies can, however, mitigate the adverse effects of aging.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; euro; rate; Area budget; Euro area policy; IMF staff calculation; deposit rate; euro area treasury; Aging; Deposit rates; Total factor productivity; Labor force; Central bank policy rate; Global; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
A Closer Look at Sectoral Financial Linkages in Brazil I: Corporations’ Financial Statements
Ms. Izabela Karpowicz
,
Mr. Fabian Lipinsky
, and
Jongho Park
Understanding the interplay between firms’ balance sheets and the macro-economic environment is important for understanding of the Brazilian economy. A close examination of developments in the nonfinancial corporate sector up to the early 2015 reveals weak equity growth, declining profitability, and rising leverage. The empirical work suggests that adverse shocks to financial variables lead to weaker real GDP growth in Brazil through their effect on corporate leverage, borrowing costs, and default frequencies. An estimation based on a DSGE model with financial frictions indicates that the recent economic downturn in Brazil is largely driven by a decrease in total factor productivity and by negative financial shocks.
Keywords:
WP; balance sheet analysis; DSGE Bayesian estimation; emerging economies; NFC sector balance sheet vulnerability; leverage ratio; NFCS leverage; Nonfinancial corporate; leverage shock; profitability indicator; percentage share; Financial statements; Productivity; Business cycles; Return on investment; Consumption; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Italy: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Selected Issues paper establishes a causal link between public sector efficiency at the provincial level and firm productivity using data for about 450,000 Italian firms. It emphasizes that significant productivity gains could be realized if public sector efficiency improves from currently low levels. If efficiency rises to the frontier in all provinces, output per employee would increase 9 percent for the average firm. Implementing the public administration reform agenda and recommendations of the 2014 spending review and competition authority could help deliver some of these productivity gains.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; firm; micro firm; firm level; firm productivity; balance sheet strength; class size dummy; Public sector; Nonperforming loans; Distressed assets; Financial statements; Corporate sector; Global