The impact of the global financial crisis on the use of long-term finance

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, there were heightened concerns that a reduced availability of long-term finance and the resulting rollover risks would adversely affect the performance of small and medium-sized firms and hamper large fixed investments. Policy makers argued that, as a result, developing countries’ ability to sustain rates of economic growth sufficiently high to reduce poverty and ensure shared prosperity would be diminished. Recently, as corporates of emerging markets have benefited from favorable global liquidity conditions to issue long-term bonds, policy discussions focused on the stability risks of high leverage that could materialize when monetary conditions normalize.