Skip to main content

External publication | 2025 European SMEs, Corporate Finance, and Economic Resilience to Floods

The authors investigate how the debt-to-equity ratio and maturity structure of SMEs influence their resilience to flood disasters.Using six million geocoded annual firm observations in nine European countries and detailed flood maps, the authors employed dynamic difference-in-differences estimators to assess the economic impact of floods and the mediating effects of debt-to-equity ratio and maturity structure.The results show a nonlinear relationship between debt-to-equity ratio and resilience.SMEs with high short-term debt and low long-term debt experience larger declines in employment growth after floods.

De Carolis, F.; Peters, V. (2025): European SMEs, Corporate Finance, and Economic Resilience to Floods, in: DNB Working Paper No 832, De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam/The Netherlands.

Publisher

Contact

Vinzenz Peters
Tel. +49 228 7299744
peters(at)ifm-bonn.org

Profile of Vinzenz Peters