Fear the walking dead: Zombie firms, spillovers and exit barriers

Ana Fontoura Gouveia and Christian Osterhold

No 13, OECD Productivity Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: Productivity growth is slowing down among OECD countries, coupled with increased misallocation of resources. A recent strand of literature focuses on the role of non-viable firms (“zombie firms”) to explain these developments. Using a rich firm-level dataset for one of the OECD countries with the largest drop in barriers to firm exit and restructure, we assess the role of zombies on firm dynamics, both in the extensive and intensive margins. We confirm the results on the high prevalence of zombie firms, significantly less productive than their healthy counterparts and thus dragging aggregate productivity down. Moreover, while we find evidence of positive selection within zombies, with the most productive restructuring and the least productive exiting, we also show that the zombies' productivity threshold for exit is much lower than that of nonzombies, allowing them to stay in the market, distorting competition and sinking resources. Zombie prevalence curbs the growth of viable firms, in particular the most productive, harming the intra-sectoral resource reallocation. We show that a reduction in exit and restructuring barriers promotes a more effective exit channel and fosters the restructuring of the most productive. These results highlight the role of public policy in addressing zombies' prevalence, fostering a more efficient resource allocation and enabling productivity growth.

Keywords: Firm Dynamics; Insolvency Frameworks; Labor Productivity; Resource Allocation; Zombie Firms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 E22 E24 G33 J24 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cse, nep-eff, nep-ent, nep-eur, nep-knm, nep-mac and nep-tid
Date: 2018-06-25
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:ecoaac:13-en

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