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Zombie Enterprises: A Definition

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2025 9:50 am
by sakib40
In the midst of the pandemic, in 2020, the Group of 30 chaired by Mario Draghi also addressed the issue. In the publication , economists, experts and scholars imagined how to intervene to safeguard companies by warning about one aspect: the creation and maintenance of zombie companies. But what are they?


The definition of zombie is attributed to mom database companies in serious financial difficulty characterized by a high incidence of indebtedness and the inability to repay the interests on the debt through their profits. And in recent years, economic literature has repeatedly focused on the phenomenon of zombie firms .

For structural reasons, Italy is one of the OECD countries with the highest incidence of zombie companies, which following the 2012 crisis began to decline due to greater selection in access to credit, the exit from the market of the most fragile companies and an improvement in capitalization. In 2020, zombie companies in Italy began to rise again, reaching 40,218 units due to the pandemic. In this period, the strong increase in companies at risk required support measures that helped keep very financially fragile companies on the market, fueling the so-called Zombie lending .

In the midst of the pandemic, in 2020, the Group of 30 chaired by Mario Draghi also addressed the issue. In the publication , economists, experts and scholars imagined how to intervene to safeguard companies by warning about one aspect: the creation and maintenance of zombie companies. But what are they?

Zombie Enterprises: A Definition

The definition of zombie is attributed to companies in serious financial difficulty characterized by a high incidence of indebtedness and the inability to repay the interests on the debt through their profits. And in recent years, economic literature has repeatedly focused on the phenomenon of zombie firms .

For structural reasons, Italy is one of the OECD countries with the highest incidence of zombie companies, which following the 2012 crisis began to decline due to greater selection in access to credit, the exit from the market of the most fragile companies and an improvement in capitalization. In 2020, zombie companies in Italy began to rise again, reaching 40,218 units due to the pandemic. In this period, the strong increase in companies at risk required support measures that helped keep very financially fragile companies on the market, fueling the so-called Zombie lending .