Discussion Paper
Stress Testing the Corporate Debt Servicing Capacity: A Scenario Analysis
Kadyrzhanova, Dalida; Pérez-Orive, Ander; Singer, Eliezer (2024-05-09)
The total volume of outstanding debt issued by U.S. nonfinancial firms relative to GDP has increased by about 8 percentage points in the past decade. While a growing volume of debt was largely viewed as benign in the low interest rate environment of the 2010s, the rapid increase in both short- and long-term rates since early 2022 has raised concerns about the debt-servicing capacity of the corporate sector.
FEDS Notes , Paper 2024-05-09

Discussion Paper
Corporate Cash Accumulation During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Singer, Eliezer; Yang, Jie (2025-08-22)
Cash holdings of U.S. nonfinancial (publicly traded) corporations increased notably during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. As depicted in Figure 1, the median cash-to-assets ratio (black, solid line) – which remained near 12 percent in the years following the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) – surged to a historic high of over 20 percent in mid-2021.
FEDS Notes , Paper 2025-08-22-2