Equity capital for companies

The Covid crisis will be remembered as a historic event because of its brutality. During this crisis, the advanced countries developed a strategy aimed at protecting the productive fabric but also employment and household purchasing power, in order to encourage a rapid recovery once the health constraints had been lifted. Existing research suggests that support for businesses during the crisis was effective in limiting business failures and rising unemployment. With the gradual lifting of health constraints, a strong rebound in activity is expected, depending on how households use their accumulated savings and the medium-term health outlook. The challenge will quickly shift to the possible stigma of the crisis: corporate and national debt, lasting changes in consumption habits and mobility, etc. The challenge is also, from now on, to take advantage of the accelerated digitalisation of the economy to increase the growth potential of economies while promoting the necessary greening of the economy. All of this will require a major investment effort in physical, intangible and human capital, and therefore well-capitalised companies to carry out these investments. What are their equity needs? How can savers and the financial system meet them? What are the respective roles of financial markets, banks, insurers, governments and regulators? This session will address these different questions through a cross-section of statistics and fieldwork.