Abstract

Using survey data from a representative sample of Irish Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), we study how firms are likely to perform under macroeconomic forecasts of the pandemic recovery. The rate of financial distress among firms is expected to fall under baseline forecasts from a peak of 12% in 2020 to 7% by 2024. We find that those firms that struggle to recover by the end of our scenario window were mostly unprofitable or distressed prior to the pandemic. Beyond our baseline case, we further model three alternative recovery scenarios to study the effect of fiscal support tapering, a partial recovery due to structural change in sectoral demand, and a financing gap driven by credit risk retrenchment by lenders. Our findings highlight the continued importance of “bridging” liquidity finance provision to ensure the long-term solvency of viable firms.

Plain English Summary

What proportion of SMEs are financially unviable in the post-pandemic economy? We study data from a representation sample of Irish SMEs and consider how they will perform under forecasts of the pandemic recovery. In our baseline scenario, we estimate that 7% of firms will remain distressed by 2024 and we find that most of these firms were unprofitable or already distressed prior to the pandemic. We look at a number of alternative macroeconomic scenarios, including where government supports are withdrawn, firms in some sectors do not fully recover, and where lenders lower the amount of money they are willing to extend to loan applicants. The impact of government support tapering alone is expected to be modest, and a partial recovery for some firms is not expected to raise aggregate distress by a sizeable amount. However, a sharp contraction in lending to otherwise viable firms leads to a significantly heightened distress rate. Policy measures that seek to support liquidity finance provision to viable firms will continue to have a role in the pandemic recovery.

中文翻译：

---

中小企业在 COVID-19 复苏中的生存能力

摘要

我们使用来自爱尔兰中小企业 (SME) 代表性样本的调查数据，研究企业在大流行病复苏的宏观经济预测下可能的表现。公司的财务困境率预计将从 2020 年 12% 的峰值下降到 2024 年的 7%，低于基线预测。我们发现，那些在我们的情景窗口结束时努力复苏的公司大多是无利可图或之前陷入困境到大流行。除了我们的基准案例之外，我们还对三种替代复苏情景进行了建模，以研究财政支持逐渐减少、部门需求结构性变化导致的部分复苏以及贷方信贷风险紧缩导致的融资缺口的影响。

简单的英语摘要

在大流行后的经济中，有多少中小企业在财务上不可行？我们研究了来自爱尔兰中小企业代表性样本的数据，并考虑了它们在大流行病复苏的预测下将如何表现。在我们的基准情景中，我们估计 7% 的公司到 2024 年仍将陷入困境，我们发现这些公司中的大多数在大流行之前都没有盈利或已经陷入困境。我们研究了一些可供选择的宏观经济情景，包括政府支持被撤回、某些行业的公司没有完全复苏，以及贷方降低了他们愿意提供给贷款申请人的资金数额。仅政府支持逐渐减少的影响预计是温和的，一些公司的部分复苏预计不会大幅增加总体压力。然而，对本来可以生存的公司的贷款急剧收缩导致不良率显着提高。旨在支持向有生存能力的公司提供流动性融资的政策措施将继续在大流行病复苏中发挥作用。