Firms’ financing conditions before and after the COVID-19 pandemic: a survey-based analysis

Annalisa Ferrando () and Judit Rariga ()
Additional contact information
Annalisa Ferrando: European Central Bank
Judit Rariga: European Central Bank

Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, 2024, vol. 51, issue 2, No 2, 239-264

Abstract: Abstract In this paper we analyze how the economic situation and financing conditions of euro area firms have changed along different crises that hit the euro area in the past 10 years, with a focus on the changes before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. We use the responses of a large sample of euro area firms to a qualitative business survey run on behalf of the European Central Bank/European Commission (Survey on the access to finance of enterprises—SAFE) since 2009. We describe how during the COVID-19 crisis, and despite generally accommodative financing conditions and state aid measures, turnover and profits of firms decreased sharply, having a dampening impact on firms’ employment and investment. As a result, firms’ financial vulnerability peaked during the COVID-19 crisis. Firms were signaling some deterioration in their access to finance as it is the case more recently due to the pass-through of increasing policy rates to the overall corporate financing conditions. We document that a deterioration in financing conditions has an impact on both firm-specific and aggregate growth. Based on firms’ perceptions, we find a link between real decisions of firms (in terms of investment and employment), macroeconomic developments and some key survey-based indicators of financing conditions.

Keywords: Financing conditions; Financing constraints; Firm survey data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C83 D22 E58 G32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40812-024-00300-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:epolin:v:51:y:2024:i:2:d:10.1007_s40812-024-00300-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40812

DOI: 10.1007/s40812-024-00300-9

Access Statistics for this article

Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics is currently edited by C. Cambini, M.G. Colombo, L. Piscitello, L. Rondi and A. Zanfei

More articles in Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics from Springer, Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().