Does Global Liquidity Matter for Monetary Policy in the Euro Area?

Abstract

Global excess liquidity roaming the world’s financial markets (or its sudden absence) is sometimes believed to limit sovereign monetary policy even in large economies such as the euro area. However, there is still discussion about what constitutes global excess liquidity and how exactly it shapes the policy environment. Our approach adjusts liquidity for longerterm interest rate and output effects and focuses on U.S. and Japanese liquidity as relevant proxies for global developments from a euro area perspective. We find that both excess liquidity in Japan and, in particular, the U.S. tend to lead developments in euro area liquidity. U.S. excess liquidity also enters consistently positive as a determinant of euro area inflation and is shown to be Granger-causal for euro area inflation in an out-of-sample forecasting exercise. In part, this result seems to be related to a weakening of the euro area interest rate channel during times of excessive U.S. liquidity. In contrast, the influence of Japanese and euro area excess liquidity on euro area inflation is more limited.