Financing Firms in Hibernation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Tatiana Didier Brandao, Federico Huneeus, Mauricio Larrain and Sergio Schmukler

No 147598, Research and Policy Briefs from The World Bank

Abstract: The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has imposed a heavy toll on economies worldwide, nearly halting economic activity. Although most firms should be viable when economic activity resumes, cash flows have collapsed, possibly triggering inefficient bankruptcies with long-term detrimental effects. Firms'valuable relationships with workers, suppliers, customers, governments, and creditors could be broken. Hibernation could slow the economy until the pandemic is brought under control and preserve those vital relationships for a quicker recovery. If all stakeholdersshare the burden of economic inactivity, firms are more likely to survive. Financing could help cover firms'reduced operational costs until the pandemic subdues. But financial systems are not well equipped to handle this type of exogenous and synchronized systemic shock. Governments could work with the financial sector to keep firms afloat, enabling forbearance as needed and absorbing part of the firms'increased credit risk, by implementing policies with proper incentives to keep firms viable.

Keywords: Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring; Health Care Services Industry; Public Health Promotion; Financial Structures; Energy and Environment; Energy Demand; Energy and Mining (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-04-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cfn and nep-ore
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/22881158 ... OVID-19-Pandemic.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Financing firms in hibernation during the COVID-19 pandemic (2021)
Working Paper: Financing Firms in Hibernation during the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020)
Working Paper: Financing Firms in Hibernation during the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020)
Working Paper: Financing Firms in Hibernation during the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020)
Working Paper: Financing Firms in Hibernation during the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020)
Working Paper: Financing Firms in Hibernation During the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020)
Working Paper: Financing Firms in Hibernation during the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020)
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:wbk:wbkrpb:147598

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Research and Policy Briefs from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().