Zombies at Large? Corporate Debt Overhang and the Macroeconomy

We thank Karsten Mu ̈ller for generously sharing his data on corporate bank credit, and Nina Boryachenko, Fernando Duarte, Anna Kovner, and John Williams for helpful comments and suggestions. Dean Parker provided research assistance. All errors are our own. Òscar Jordà, Moritz Schularick, and Alan M. Taylor gratefully acknowledge support from the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Moritz Schularick gratefully acknowledges support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2126/1 – 39083886, as well as a Fellowship from the Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago. Martin Kornejew gratefully acknowledges support from RTG 2281 funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The views expressed herein are solely the responsibility of the authors and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, or the National Bureau of Economic Research.