IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/28435.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Unholy Trinity: Regulatory Forbearance, Stressed Banks and Zombie Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Anusha Chari
  • Lakshita Jain
  • Nirupama Kulkarni

Abstract

During the global financial crisis, the Reserve Bank of India enacted forbearance measures that lowered capital provisioning rates for loans under temporary liquidity stress. Matched bank-firm data reveal that troubled banks took advantage of the policy to also shield firms facing serious solvency issues. Perversely, in industries and bank portfolios with high proportions of failing firms, credit to healthy firms declined and was reallocated to the weakest firms. By incentivizing banks to hide true asset quality, the forbearance policy provided a license for regulatory arbitrage. The build-up of stressed assets in India’s predominantly state-owned banking system is consistent with accounting subterfuge.

Suggested Citation

  • Anusha Chari & Lakshita Jain & Nirupama Kulkarni, 2021. "The Unholy Trinity: Regulatory Forbearance, Stressed Banks and Zombie Firms," NBER Working Papers 28435, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28435
    Note: CF DEV EFG IFM ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w28435.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dan Andrews & Filippos Petroulakis, 2017. "Breaking the Shackles: Zombie Firms, Weak Banks and Depressed Restructuring in Europe," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1433, OECD Publishing.
    2. Pallavi Chavan & Leonardo Gambacorta, 2019. "Bank lending and loan quality: an emerging economy perspective," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 1-29, July.
    3. Viral V Acharya & Tim Eisert & Christian Eufinger & Christian Hirsch, 2019. "Whatever It Takes: The Real Effects of Unconventional Monetary Policy," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(9), pages 3366-3411.
    4. Müge Adalet McGowan & Dan Andrews & Valentine Millot & Thorsten BeckManaging Editor, 2018. "The walking dead? Zombie firms and productivity performance in OECD countries," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 33(96), pages 685-736.
    5. Asim Ijaz Khwaja & Atif Mian, 2005. "Do Lenders Favor Politically Connected Firms? Rent Provision in an Emerging Financial Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(4), pages 1371-1411.
    6. Lin William Cong & Haoyu Gao & Jacopo Ponticelli & Xiaoguang Yang, 2019. "Credit Allocation Under Economic Stimulus: Evidence from China," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(9), pages 3412-3460.
    7. Joe Peek & Eric S. Rosengren, 2005. "Unnatural Selection: Perverse Incentives and the Misallocation of Credit in Japan," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1144-1166, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Federico Huneeus & Joseph Kaboski & Mauricio Larrain & Sergio Schmukler & Mario Vera, 2022. "The Distribution of Crisis Credit: Effects on Firm Indebtedness and Aggregate Risk," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 942, Central Bank of Chile.
    2. Stefano Fiorin & Joseph Hall & Martin Kanz, 2023. "How do Borrowers Respond to a Debt Moratorium? Experimental Evidence from Consumer Loans in India," Working Papers 691, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    3. Chakrabarti, Prasenjit & Kaur, Jasmeet, 2024. "Zombie-lending during the pandemic in India: Did the Central Bank reduce credit misallocation concerns of forbearance?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 153-170.
    4. Lucas Argentieri Mariani & Silvia Marchesi, 2023. "International Lending Channel, Bank Heterogeneity and Capital Inflows (Mis)Allocation," Working Papers 523, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics.
    5. Zhi, Xiaoxu & Liu, Zongzhi & Yuan, Lingran & Gong, Binlei, 2024. "Rent-seeking Vampires Under Information Asymmetry: Evidence From Agricultural Cooperatives Subsidy Policy in China," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343636, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Faria-e-Castro, Miguel & Paul, Pascal & Sánchez, Juan M., 2024. "Evergreening," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
      • Miguel Faria-e-Castro & Pascal Paul & Juan M. Sanchez, 2021. "Evergreening," Working Papers 2021-012, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised Aug 2023.
      • Miguel Faria-e-Castro & Pascal Paul & Juan M. Sanchez, 2022. "Evergreening," Working Paper Series 2022-14, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    7. Kaehny, Maximilian & Herweg, Fabian, 2022. "Do Zombies Rise When Interest Rates Fall? A Relationship-Banking Model," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264126, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. C. A. K. Lovell, 2021. "The Pandemic, The Climate, and Productivity," CEPA Working Papers Series WP112021, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    9. Fabian Herweg & Maximilian Kähny, 2022. "Do Zombies Rise when Interest Rates Fall? A Relationship Banking Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 9628, CESifo.
    10. Pavel Chakraborty, 2024. "Bank ownership and firm performance," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 91(361), pages 238-267, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ren, Meixu & Zhao, Jinxuan & Zhao, Jingmei, 2023. "The crowding-out effect of zombie companies on fixed asset investment: Evidence from China," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    2. Feng, Ling & Lang, Henan & Pei, Tingting, 2022. "Zombie firms and corporate savings: Evidence from Chinese manufacturing firms," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 551-564.
    3. Ricardo Pinheiro Alves & Nuno Tavares & Gabriel Osório de Barros, 2023. "Revisitar as Empresas Zombie em Portugal (2008-2021)," GEE Papers 178, Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia, revised Oct 2023.
    4. Diana Bonfim & Geraldo Cerqueiro & Hans Degryse & Steven Ongena, 2023. "On-Site Inspecting Zombie Lending," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(5), pages 2547-2567, May.
    5. Nirupama Kulkarni & S.K. Ritadhi & Sayan Mukherjee, 2021. "Unearthing Zombies," Working Papers 59, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    6. Christian Keuschnigg & Michael Kogler & Johannes Matt, 2022. "Banks, Credit Reallocation, and Creative Destruction," CESifo Working Paper Series 10093, CESifo.
    7. Tuuli, Saara, 2023. "Who funds zombie firms: Banks or non-banks?," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 2/2023, Bank of Finland.
    8. Maximilian Göbel & Nuno Tavares, 2022. "Zombie-Lending in the United States: Prevalence versus Relevance," Working Papers REM 2022/0231, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    9. Hartwig, Benny & Lieberknecht, Philipp, 2020. "Monetary policy, firm exit and productivity," Discussion Papers 61/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    10. Shen, Yu & Ren, Meixu & Zhao, Jingmei, 2023. "Bank competition and zombie company: Empirical evidence from China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 297-318.
    11. Álvarez, Laura & García-Posada, Miguel & Mayordomo, Sergio, 2023. "Distressed firms, zombie firms and zombie lending: A taxonomy," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    12. Barbaro, Bianca & Tirelli, Patrizio, 2021. "Forbearance vs foreclosure in a general equilibrium model," Working Paper Series 2531, European Central Bank.
    13. Kaehny, Maximilian & Herweg, Fabian, 2022. "Do Zombies Rise When Interest Rates Fall? A Relationship-Banking Model," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264126, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Özlem Dursun-de Neef, H. & Schandlbauer, Alexander, 2021. "COVID-19 and lending responses of European banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    15. Jiani Li & Jie Li & Tianhang Zhou, 2023. "State ownership and zombie firms: Evidence from China's 2008 stimulus plan," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(4), pages 853-876, October.
    16. Fabian Herweg & Maximilian Kähny, 2022. "Do Zombies Rise when Interest Rates Fall? A Relationship Banking Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 9628, CESifo.
    17. Mingarelli, Luca & Ravanetti, Beatrice & Shakir, Tamarah & Wendelborn, Jonas, 2022. "Dawn of the (half) dead: the twisted world of zombie identification," Working Paper Series 2743, European Central Bank.
    18. Luc Laeven & Glenn Schepens & Isabel Schnabel, 2020. "Zombification in Europe in times of pandemic," ECONtribute Policy Brief Series 011, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    19. Giovanni Favara & Camelia Minoiu & Ander Pérez-Orive, 2024. "Zombie Lending to U.S. Firms," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2024-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    20. Chakrabarti, Prasenjit & Kaur, Jasmeet, 2024. "Zombie-lending during the pandemic in India: Did the Central Bank reduce credit misallocation concerns of forbearance?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 153-170.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28435. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.