Collaborative Research: The Anatomy of Firm Exit: Theory and Facts

企业退出是造成整体就业岗位减少的一个重要因素。除了失去的工作岗位外，公司退出还会永久性地破坏无形资本，如客户与公司的关系和品牌声誉。然而，企业退出的根本驱动因素仍然相对未知。该项目将研究哪些公司特征最能预测公司退出，并将重点重新放在财务健康上。目标是确定哪些公司倒闭是因为缺乏长期的商业活动可持续性(偿付能力)，而不是临时限制的融资渠道(流动性不足)。主要的假设是，后者在危机时期尤为突出。提供一种理论来解释这种模式背后的市场不完善类型，对于设计有效的政策干预至关重要。拟议的框架将使研究人员能够评估对新冠肺炎的政策回应是否充分，并提出应对未来经济低迷的潜在改进建议。该项目的第一部分将分析性地研究财务困境对企业退出的影响。PI提出了一个包含财务摩擦的两阶段企业动态模型。公司能够使用非国家或有债务从金融中介机构借入资金，以支付固定的运营成本。公司可能会选择在现有债务上违约。如果他们这样做了，金融中介机构可以接管并运营公司，但只需最初生产力的一小部分。作为违约期权的结果，企业面临内生借款上限，导致企业低效退出。虽然低效企业退出或财务摩擦的程度不能在数据中直接衡量，但该模型提供了低效企业退出与企业退出倾向与其所持债务的条件协方差之间的映射。该项目的第二部分旨在通过经验揭示企业退出的关键驱动因素。使用包括详细财务信息的公司级数据，采购经理人指数将表征公司退出财务特征的倾向的敏感性，并记录这种敏感性如何在商业周期中变化。我们的目标是双重的。首先，在分析模型的镜头中检验是否存在无效的企业退出。第二，提供力矩来校准模型的量化版本。该项目的第三部分量化了企业在整个商业周期中的低效退出程度。分析将基于一个具有总波动和内生企业进入和退出的无限水平模型。采购经理人指数将使用量化模型来表明，由于企业低效退出造成的福利损失如何取决于衰退的长度和深度以及进入成本的大小。最后，PIs将研究旨在缓解企业退出低效的不同政策的有效性。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Firm exit is a significant contributor to overall job destruction. In addition to the jobs lost, firm exit permanently destroys intangible capital, such as customer-firm relationships and brand reputation. Yet, the underlying drivers of firm exit remain relatively unexplored. This project will study which firm characteristics best predict firm exit, with a renewed focus on financial health. The goal is to determine which firms fail due to lack of long-run sustainability of the business activity (solvency) versus temporary restricted access to funding (illiquidity). The main hypothesis is that the latter is particularly salient in times of crises. Providing a theory that explains the type of market imperfection behind this pattern is crucial in order to design effective policy interventions. The proposed framework will allow researchers to assess whether policy responses to COVID-19 were adequate and suggest potential improvements in addressing future downturns.The first part of the project will study analytically the effect of financial distress on firm exit. The PIs propose a two-period model of firm dynamics with financial frictions. Firms are able to borrow funds from financial intermediaries using non-state-contingent debt to cover fixed operating costs. Firms may choose to default on their existing debt obligations. If they do so, financial intermediaries can take over and operate the firm, but at a fraction of its initial productivity. As a result of the default option, firms face an endogenous borrowing limit, giving rise to inefficient firm exit. While inefficient firm exit or the level of financial frictions cannot be directly measured in the data, the model provides a mapping between inefficient firm exit and the conditional covariance of a firm’s propensity to exit with its debt holdings. The second part of the project aims to shed light empirically on the key drivers of firm exit. Using firm-level data that includes detailed financial information, the PIs will characterize the sensitivity of firms’ propensity to exit to financial characteristics, and document how this sensitivity varies over the business cycle. The goal is two-fold. First, testing for the presence of inefficient firm exit in the lens of the analytical model. Second, providing moments to calibrate a quantitative version of the model. The third part of the project quantifies the degree of inefficient firm exit over the business cycle. The analysis will be based on an infinite-horizon model with aggregate fluctuations and endogenous firm entry and exit. The PIs will use the quantitative model to show how the welfare losses due to inefficient firm exit depend on the length and depth of recessions and on the magnitude of entry costs. Finally, the PIs will study the effectiveness of different policies aimed at alleviating firm exit inefficiencies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.