We analyze factors impacting the acquisition of distressed firms in European emerging markets during and after the global financial crisis (2007 2017) by assessing 22,608 distressed acquisitions in 17 economies. We provide detailed evidence of the impact of financial ratios, legal form, ownership structure, firm size, and firm age, emphasizing the role of institutions.We show that institutions specifically related to quality and enforcement of insolvency law have lower probability of distressed acquisitions. The extent of corruption control and progress in banking reforms are also strong factors. The qualitative impact of institutions is similar, but its size is larger in less-advanced countries when compared to economically stronger ones. We take it as indirect evidence of the diminishing marginal returns of institutions with respect to their quality. The effect of institutions increased after the financial crisis, but as the economic situation improved, their impact declined.

We analyze factors behind 23,213 distressed acquisitions in European emerging markets from 2007-2019. Besides the impact of financial ratios, legal form, ownership structure, firm size, and age, we emphasize the role of institutions and channels of their propagation. We show that the quality and enforcement of insolvency laws are linked with the lower probability of distressed acquisitions, followed by corruption control and progress in banking reforms. The impact of institutions is larger in lessadvanced countries as compared to economically stronger ones. The effect of institutions increased after the financial crisis but declined as the economic situation improved.

In this paper, we traced the survival status of 94,401 small businesses in 17 European emerging markets from 2007-2017 and empirically examined the determinants of their survival, focusing on institutional quality and financial development. We found that institutional quality and the level of financial development impact the survival probability of the researched SMEs in statistically significant and economically meaningful ways. The evidence holds even when we control for a set of firm-level characteristics such as ownership structure, financial performance, firm size, and age. The findings are also uniform across industries and country groups and robust beyond the difference in assumption of hazard distribution, firm size, region, and time period.

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