How Banks React to Negative Rates: Early Evidence from Japan

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate how negative interest rate policy (NIRP) introduced by the Bank of Japan (BoJ) affected Japanese banks' lending and risk-taking behavior. The BoJ's unexpected announcement was unequivocally viewed as an accommodative surprise in financial markets, but equity prices of Japanese financial firms experienced sharp drops. We exploit the cross-sectional variation in the change of share prices around the announcement to measure banks' differential exposure to negative rate policy. We first document the unique characteristics of Japan's banking system that heighten the exposure of Japanese banks to NIRP. We then show that, consistent with an operative risk taking channel, banks that were more exposed to NIRP insulated their profits from the adverse effects of negative policy rates by boosting risk-taking behavior and increasing credit supply relative to less exposed banks. However, our theoretical framework suggests that, for sufficiently negative rates, banks will eventually be pushed past the limit of their ability or willingness to offset profit pressures via additional risk taking, which can inhibit the transmission of NIRP through banks.