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

公司的退出是整体就业破坏的一个重要因素。除了工作岗位的流失，企业的退出还永久性地摧毁了无形资本，如客户与企业的关系和品牌声誉。然而，企业退出的潜在驱动因素仍然相对未被探索。本项目将研究哪些公司特征最能预测公司退出，并重新关注财务健康。其目标是确定哪些公司由于商业活动缺乏长期可持续性（偿付能力）而失败，而哪些公司由于暂时限制获得资金（流动性不足）而失败。主要的假设是，后者在危机时期尤为突出。为了设计有效的政策干预措施，提供一种理论来解释这种模式背后的市场不完善的类型至关重要。该框架将使研究人员能够评估应对COVID-19的政策是否足够，并提出应对未来经济衰退的潜在改进措施。该项目的第一部分将分析研究财务困境对企业退出的影响。PI提出了一个具有财务摩擦的企业动态的两阶段模型。企业可以使用非国家或有债务从金融中介机构借入资金，以支付固定运营成本。公司可以选择拖欠现有债务。如果他们这样做，金融中介机构可以接管并经营该公司，但其初始生产力的一小部分。作为违约选择的结果，企业面临着一个内生的借款限制，导致企业退出效率低下。虽然低效率的公司退出或金融摩擦的水平不能直接测量的数据，该模型提供了一个映射之间的低效率的公司退出和公司的退出倾向与其持有的债务的条件协方差。该项目的第二部分旨在从经验上阐明企业退出的主要驱动因素。使用包括详细财务信息的企业级数据，PI将描述企业退出倾向对财务特征的敏感性，并记录这种敏感性在商业周期中的变化。目标是双重的。首先，检验分析模型的透镜中是否存在无效的公司退出。第二，提供时刻来校准模型的定量版本。本项目的第三部分量化了在商业周期中低效率企业退出的程度。分析将基于一个无限时域模型与总波动和内生企业进入和退出。PI将使用定量模型来说明由于低效率企业退出而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，PI将研究旨在减轻企业退出效率低下的不同政策的有效性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.