Firm Entry and Exit during Recessions

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Date issued
Jun 2021
Subject
Credit;
Productivity Shock;
Coronavirus;
Lockdown;
Economic Recession;
Firms Dynamics
JEL code
E24 - Employment • Unemployment • Wages • Intergenerational Income Distribution • Aggregate Human Capital • Aggregate Labor Productivity;
E32 - Business Fluctuations • Cycles;
D22 - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis;
D21 - Firm Behavior: Theory
Country
United States
Category
Working Papers
We analyze shocks to productivity, collateral constraint (credit shock), firm operation, and labor disutility in a model of firm dynamics with entry and exit. Shocks to firm operation and labor disutility capture COVID-19 lockdowns. Compared to the productivity shock, the credit and the lockdown shocks generate larger changes in firm entry and exit. The credit shock accounts for lower entry, higher exit, and concentration of exit among young firms during the Great Recession. The lockdown shocks predict a large fall in entry and rise in exit followed by a sharp rebound. In both recessions, changes in entry and exit account for 10-20 percent of the fall in output and hours. Finally, we discuss how the modeling of potential entrants matters for the quantitative results.
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