La détresse financière des entreprises: trajectoire du déclin et traitement judiciaire du défaut

This thesis aims to evaluate the efficiency of bankruptcy laws on an ex ante and ex post point of view according to three criteria: their financial efficiency, their social efficiency and their macroeconomic coherence.
First, we analyze the economic and financial path of default and its legal treatment in order to determine the potential costs induced by the social objectives (employment preservation) of French bankruptcy law in terms of recoveries for creditors. We find that the legal treatment of default is in France implemented in the spirit of the objectives defined and hierarchized by the law, and that the court undertakes measures in order to also protect financial interests; this result invalidates our hypothesis that these two objectives are incompatible.
Subsequently, we adopt a Law and Finance approach in order to bind bankruptcy codes to national environments. We offer an appreciation of the macroeconomic degree of coherence of default, which is in our opinion an element of its efficiency.