Topic： Zombie Firm Dynamics and China's Monetary Policy
Schedule：10:30-12:00, Oct 21, 2020
Location：Chengming Hall (诚明楼) 315 
Speaker：李伟博士 (Dr. Wei Li)

Abstract：By examining dynamics of zombie firms with respect to both the intensive margin and extensive margin, we study the distributional effects of monetary policy on firm performance and reallocation dynamics in China. Based on China Industrial Enterprise database from 1998 to 2013, this paper documents the evidence of two competing forces arising from China's monetary policy practices. First, monetary expansion leads to an improvement upon the extensive margin of Chinese firm dynamics by selecting good firms out of the bad league of "zombie" firms that are marked by negative profits and subsidized borrowing. Simultaneously, conditional on staying as zombies, these firms are associated with greater resource misallocations, thus a deterioration at the intensive margin. Precisely, we show why zombie firms exits: monetary stimulus brings forth improved revenue without further distorting the borrowing cost of these firms. For very persistent zombie firms, leverage went up and revenue was down in spite of increasingly subsidized borrowings. We then build a heterogeneous-firm model to study zombie firm dynamics.

题目： 僵尸企业动态与中国货币政策
摘要：通过考察僵尸企业在集约边际和外延边际方面的动态，我们研究了货币政策对中国企业绩效和再分配的动态效应。本文基于 1998 年至 2013 年的中国工业企业数据库，记录了中国货币政策实践产生的两种竞争力量的证据。首先，货币扩张通过从以负利润和补贴借贷为特征的不良“僵尸”企业中选择好企业来改善中国企业的外延边际。同时，在保持僵尸状态的条件下，这些企业与更大的资源分配不当有关，因此在集约化边际上产生恶化。确切地说，我们展示了僵尸企业退出的原因：货币刺激带来了收入的增加，而不会进一步扭曲这些企业的借贷成本。对于非常顽固的僵尸公司，尽管有越来越多的补贴借款，但杠杆率上升，收入下降。然后，我们建立了一个异质性企业模型来研究僵尸企业动态。