Title

Bankruptcy Resolution Capacity And Economic Fluctuations

Keywords

Bankruptcy resolution capacity; E02; E32; K35; R11; Regional economic fluctuations; U.S. states

Abstract

In this paper, I build a partial equilibrium model and uncover a relationship between regional macroeconomic fluctuations and bankruptcy resolution capacity that depends on the cyclicality of bankruptcy. If the frequency of bankruptcy is countercyclical, the model predicts that fluctuations are more severe in regions with lower bankruptcy resolution capacity. This is because, in these regions, banks' bad-loan recovery costs are higher (due to the length of the bankruptcy proceedings) and their lending is more sensitive to macroeconomic shocks that impact the likelihood of bankruptcy. Therefore, shocks that increase the frequency of bankruptcy and decrease output at the same time, for example, are amplified due to a lower level of bank lending. I draw opposite conclusions when bankruptcy is procyclical (i.e., economic fluctuations are less severe in regions with low bankruptcy resolution capacity). In the second half of the paper, I find evidence indicating that bankruptcy is countercyclical and that in the U.S. states with lower bankruptcy resolution capacity, economic fluctuations, consistent with the model's predictions, are more severe. © 2014 Elsevier Inc..

Publication Date

1-1-2014

Publication Title

Journal of Macroeconomics

Volume

40

Number of Pages

387-399

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmacro.2014.02.001

Socpus ID

84899916932 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84899916932

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS