Insolvency Risk of European SMEs during Pandemic

Abstract

Covid-19 pandemic poses an existential threat to European SMEs financial resilience with significant consequences for the European economy. Using a unique firm‐level survey data on SME financing conditions and a new measurement approach, this paper focuses on the insolvency risk of European SMEs and their access to finance around pandemic. We show that SME insolvency risk increased, on average, by around 21% during the pandemic. Finding customers and the cost of production and labor have contributed notably to SME insolvency risk around this period. Heightened insolvency risk results in deterioration in expected access to finance in general. During the pandemic, though, no particular worsening is observed in access to bank lending. Overall, our results have important policy implications for designing suitable policy measures to mitigate SME liquidity shortages and avoid unnecessary insolvencies during and in the aftermath of the pandemic.