Non-standard Monetary Policy Measures Research Articles

Bank and non-bank balance sheet responses to monetary policy shocks

We provide evidence on how banks and non-bank financial intermediaries differ in their response to monetary policy. Our findings are based on a standard empirical macro model for the euro area, augmented with balance sheet data for banks and investment funds. The model is estimated via local projections, using high-frequency methods to identify different types of monetary policy shocks. Short-rate shocks lead to a significant balance sheet response of banks and investment funds, with a slightly swifter and more persistent reaction of banks. Long-rate shocks instead exert only short-lived effects on bank balance sheets, whereas investment fund balance sheets exhibit a stronger and more persistent response. The relative role of different types of financial intermediaries hence emerges as a relevant factor in shaping the transmission process for conventional and non-standard monetary policy measures. • Monetary policy transmits unevenly to bank and investment fund balance sheets. • Non-standard monetary policy affects investment funds more strongly than banks. • Standard monetary policy remains effective, despite the rise in non-bank finance.

What kind of judicial review for the European Central Bank?

This article examines the judicial review used by the CJEU in assessing the ECB's non-standard monetary policy measures and the dispute between the German Constitutional Court and the CJEU over the standard of review to be used. In addition, it discusses the possibility of a future clash between the two courts in the post Covid-19 era. It first analyses the type of judicial control carried out by the CJEU during the Euro crisis in the Gauweiler and Weiss cases. It then explores the reasons for criticism of the CJEU reasoning by the doctrine. During the pandemic period the ECB has taken unprecedented steps and increased its monetary policy instruments, such as the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP). The potential confrontation between the GCC and the ECB over PEPP is, however, deemed limited. It concludes analysing the possibility to add a court-appointed expert to the CJEU's decision-making process. Indeed, the presence of an expert could improve judicial review and increase the depth of the judgments also against national courts that have asked for preliminary ruling. However, the independence of the ECB should not be affected.

Nonstandard monetary policies and bank profitability: The case of Spain

AbstractThe aim of this study is to examine the effects of nonstandard monetary policy measures implemented by the Eurosystem on the Spanish banking sector profitability. To do this, a new database is built merging data from the Spanish Banking Industry Statistical Yearbook and from the Spanish Stock Market Commission. Applying different econometric techniques to a panel of 54 Spanish banks that covers the period 2001–2017 and controlling for bank‐specific factors and macroeconomic conditions, no discernible impact is found between the Eurosystem's nonstandard monetary policy measures (ECB's total assets, excess reserves and the slope of the yield curve) and bank profitability measured as return on assets, pre‐tax operating income and interest margins. This result is robust to different specifications and to different groups of banks.

IMPACT OF THE FED’S UNCONVENTIONAL MONETARY POLICY ON THE US FINANCIAL MARKET

This paper is devoted to the unconventional monetary policy measures implemented by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) after the global financial crisis. The objective is to conduct an empirical analysis and econometric study on the effects of the US Fed non-standard monetary policy measures on the US financial market, namely by observing the reaction on the US 10-year government bond yield, the US stock market via the S&P 500 index, and the exchange rate of the US dollar versus the euro (EUR/USD). The observed period spreads from January 2009 to March 2019, with the use of monthly data. It captures the Fed’s unconventional monetary policy measures, the first steps of the then planned gradual termination of quantitative easing (QE) and lifting of the interest rates, which was reverted in the course of 2019 and 2020. The results from the constructed vector error correction model suggest that Fed’s monetary policy stance continues to influence the changes in the bond yields, the S&P 500 index, and the value of the US dollar through the interest rate, the portfolio balance, and the exchange rate channels. The findings show that the process of normalization of the monetary policy regarding the future interest rates path in the US under the Fed’s monetary policy must be carefully guided. It must be consistent with the macroeconomic conditions and the state of the financial sector. The impact on the developed and emerging markets must be considered as well, with the main aim of avoiding potential serious risks.

A Cointegration Model of Money and Wealth

Extending the data set used in Beyer (2009) to 2017, we estimate I(1) and I(2) money demand models for euro area M3. After including two broken trends and a few dummies to account for shifts in the variables following the global financial crisis and the ECB's non-standard monetary policy measures, we find that the money demand and the real wealth relations identified in Beyer (2009) have remained remarkably stable throughout the extended sample period. Testing for price homogeneity in the I(2) model we find that the nominal-to-real transformation is not rejected for the money relation whereas the wealth relation cannot be expressed in real terms.

The Real-Time Impact of ECB Press Conferences on Financial Markets

We present a new methodology to trace the information flow of communication events: Using the captions of press conference webcasts and textual analysis tools we fully automatically create timestamps for the different information content which can then be used to study the respective real-time impact on financial markets. Applying our approach to the press conferences of the European Central Bank we find that the ECB’s announcements of non-standard monetary policy measures first further increased the pre-ECB drift (as documented by Ulrich et al., 2017) by 20% before equity prices start to drop. Over 50% of this fall is realized during the ECB’s economic analysis, partly due to information about the real economy and partly due to inflation news. We relate the former to news about the course of the European sovereign debt crisis. The results are especially pronounced for the banking and insurance sector as well as the GIIPS countries in our sample.

Correction: The Bill, Please! Households’ Real Returns on Financial Assets Since the Introduction of the Euro

In the article “The Bill, Please! Households’ Real Returns on Financial Assets Since the Introduction of the Euro” by Marc-Peter Radke and Manuel Rupprecht in Intereconomics, Vol. 54, No. 2, 2019, pp. 106–113, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10272-019-0803-6 , an editing error occurred in the first paragraph. The correction appears here. Intereconomics regrets this inconvenience. After ten years of historically low interest rates and a massive expansion of the eurosystem’s balance sheet due to non-standard monetary policy measures, net asset purchases were discontinued in December 2018. Although policy rates were enunciated to remain at their present low levels through the summer of 2019, it was widely expected that they would rise immediately afterwards.

Peut-on encore modéliser la politique monétaire dans un cadre DSGE ?

Cet article étudie l’incorporation des mesures non conventionnelles de politique monétaire dans les modèles d’équilibre général stochastiques et dynamiques. La thèse principale de cet article est qu’il n’y a aucune dimension de la politique monétaire, conventionnelle ou pas, qu’il soit impossible de modéliser dans ce type de cadre.

Empowering Central Bank Asset Purchases: The Role of Financial Policies

This paper contributes to the debate on the macroeconomic effectiveness of expansionary non-standard monetary policy measures in a regulated banking environment. Based on an estimated DSGE model, we explore the interactions between central bank asset purchases and bank capital-based financial policies (regulatory, supervisory or macroprudential) through its influence on bank risk-shifting motives. We find that weakly-capitalised banks display excessive risk-taking which reinforces the credit easing channel of central bank asset purchases, at the cost of higher bank default probability and risks to financial stability. In such a case, adequate bank capital demand through higher minimum capital requirements curtails the excessive credit origination and restores a more efficient propagation of central bank asset purchases. As supervisors can formulate further capital demands, uncertainty about the supervisory oversight provokes precautionary motives for banks. They build-up extra capital buffer attenuating non-standard monetary policy. Finally, in a weakly-capitalised banking system, countercyclical macroprudential policy attenuates banks risk-taking and dampens the excessive persistence of the non-standard monetary policy impulse. On the contrary, in a well-capitalised banking system, macroprudential policy should look through the effects of central bank asset purchases on bank capital position, as the costs in terms of macroeconomic stabilisation seem to outweigh the marginal financial stability benefits.

Non-standard monetary policy measures for selected Central banks

Non-standard monetary policy measures for selected Central banks

The Non-Standard Monetary Policy Measures of the ECB: Motivations, Effectiveness and Risks

This paper examines the challenges faced by the European Central Bank since the outbreak of the global financial crisis. From 2008 to 2014, the need to preserve the correct functioning of the monetary policy transmission mechanism and ensure the supply of credit to the private sector stretched the limits of conventional monetary policy. In 2015, the risk of deflation led the ECB to start a large scale asset purchase programme. The analysis is largely based on a review of the many studies that Banca d’Italia staff has produced on the factors that have brought inflation to unprecedented low levels in 2014 and on the effects of the asset purchase programme.

The Non-Standard Monetary Policy Measures of the ECB: Motivations, Effectiveness and Risks

Abstract This paper examines the challenges faced by the European Central Bank since the outbreak of the global financial crisis. From 2008 to 2014, the need to preserve the correct functioning of the monetary policy transmission mechanism and ensure the supply of credit to the private sector stretched the limits of conventional monetary policy. In 2015, the risk of deflation led the ECB to start a large scale asset purchase programme. The analysis is largely based on a review of the many studies that Banca d’Italia staff has produced on the factors that have brought inflation to unprecedented low levels in 2014 and on the effects of the asset purchase programme. Zusammenfassung Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Herausforderungen, vor denen die Europäische Zentralbank seit dem Ausbruch der globalen Finanzkrise steht. Von 2008 bis 2014 hat die Notwendigkeit, das ordnungsgemäße Funktionieren des geldpolitischen Transmissionsmechanismus zu wahren und die Kreditversorgung des privaten Sektors sicherzustellen, die Grenzen der konventionellen Geldpolitik überschritten. Im Jahr 2015 führte das Deflationsrisiko dazu, dass die EZB ein groß angelegtes Anleihenkaufprogramm aufnahm. Die vorliegende Analyse basiert im Wesentlichen auf einer Überprüfung der zahlreichen Studien, welche die Mitarbeiter der Banca d‘Italia zu den Faktoren erstellt haben. Diese Faktoren haben einerseits die Inflation 2014 auf ein beispiellos niedriges Niveau gebracht und andererseits Auswirkungen auf das Programm zum Ankauf von Vermögenswerten zur Folge gehabt. JEL Classification: E31, E43, E52

Central Bank Communication in the XXI Century: A Survey of Theory and Evidence

After the recent global financial crisis, central banks in advanced and developing economies found themselves unable to stick to their mandate goal of price stability by resorting to traditional instruments of monetary policy. When key interest rates approached the zero bound, the need to develop a new toolkit of liquidity provision arose. Central banks embarked on numerous non-standard monetary policy measures aimed at ensuring financial stability and restoring economic growth. Communication has become an effective auxiliary instrument of economic policy, and markets started paying precise attention to the way central bankers report information regarding the future path of monetary policy. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of recent trends and developments in central bank communication strategies. By resorting to the existing literature, we analyze the origins of central bank communication and the evolution of its role in time. We also study the main instruments of communication strategies of large central banks. In the final part of the study, we investigate the communication strategy of the US Federal Reserve and the way it may cause spillovers to fragile markets abroad. We outline at least three major channels of international policy transmission: through stocks, bonds and exchange rates fluctuations.

The First Twenty Years of the European Central Bank: Monetary Policy

On 1 June 2018 the ECB celebrated its 20th anniversary. This paper provides a comprehensive view of the ECB’s monetary policy over these two decades. The first section provides a chronological account of the macroeconomic and monetary policy developments in the euro area since the adoption of the euro in 1999, going through four cyclical phases “conditioning” ECB monetary policy. We describe the monetary policy decisions from the ECB’s perspective and against the background of its evolving monetary policy strategy and framework. We also highlight a number of the key critical issues that were the subject of debate. The second section contains a partial assessment. We first analyze the achievement of the price stability mandate and developments in the ECB’s credibility. Next, we investigate the ECB’s interest rate decisions through the lens of a simple empirical interest rate reaction function. This is appropriate until the ECB hits the zero-lower bound in 2013. Finally, we present the ECB’s framework for thinking about non-standard monetary policy measures and review the evidence on their effectiveness. One of the main themes of the paper is how ECB monetary policy responded to the challenges posed by the European twin crises and the subsequent slow economic recovery, making use of its relatively wide range of instruments, defining new ones where necessary and developing the strategic underpinnings of its policy framework.

The European Central Bank's Monetary Policy during Its First 20 Years

On June 1, 2018, the European Central Bank (ECB) celebrated its 20th anniversary. This paper provides a comprehensive view of the ECB's monetary policy over these two decades. The first section gives a chronological account of the macroeconomic and monetary policy developments in the euro area since the adoption of the euro in 1999, going through four cyclical phases "conditioning" ECB monetary policy. We describe the monetary policy decisions from the ECB's perspective and against the background of its evolving monetary policy strategy and framework. We also highlight a number of the key, critical issues that were the subject of debate. The second section contains various assessments. We analyze the achievement of the price stability mandate and developments in the ECB's credibility, and we also investigate the ECB's interest rate decisions through the lens of a simple empirical interest rate reaction function. Finally, we present the ECB's framework for thinking about nonstandard monetary policy measures and review the evidence on their effectiveness. One of the main themes of the paper is how the ECB utilized its monetary policy to respond to the challenges posed by the European twin financial and sovereign debt crises and the subsequent slow economic recovery, making use of its relatively wide range of instruments, defining new ones where necessary, and developing the strategic underpinnings of its policy framework.

U.S. Monetary Policy, Commodity Prices and the Financialization Hypothesis

Abstract Many studies point out the growing correlations within financial markets, while others highlight the financialization of commodity markets. The purpose of this article is to revisit the relationships between various financial assets and commodity markets by taking into account the U.S. monetary policy and therefore the implementation of non-standard measures. In addition to oil, stock and bond markets, U.S. policy rates and a great deal of agricultural prices have been over time considered through a DCC-GARCH model, between 1995-2015. We find that agricultural markets uphold the financialization hypothesis, implying an increase in market-prices’ correlations and so raises the question of agricultural prices’ drivers. Interestingly, conditional correlations between the U.S. monetary policy and agricultural prices have decreased since 2010, which indicates that the implementation of non-standard monetary policy measures reduces spillover effects on asset prices, especially raw commodities. Such a result in turn highlights changing relationships between monetary, financial and physical markets, in a context of very weak policy rates over a long period.

Macroeconomic Effects of Non-Standard Monetary Policy Measures in the Euro Area: The Role of Corporate Bond Purchases

This paper evaluates the macroeconomic effects of the corporate sector purchase programme (CSPP) implemented in the euro area by the Eurosystem. For this purpose we calibrate and simulate a monetary-union dynamic general equilibrium model. We assume that entrepreneurs can finance their spending by issuing bonds in the domestic corporate bond market and by borrowing from domestic banks. We found that the March 2016 CSPP boosts euro-area GDP by around 0.3% in the second year (peak level). Inflation rises too but by a smaller amount. Second, taking into account the programme’s extension in December 2016, its overall impact on GDP amounts to 0.6%. Third, the CSPP also stimulates banking activity, because the improvement in macroeconomic conditions leads to higher demand for loans from households and entrepreneurs. Fourth, an early exit from the CSPP negatively impacts its macroeconomic effectiveness, while forward guidance on monetary policy rate enhances it.

Spillovers from the ECB's Non-Standard Monetary Policy Measures on South-Eastern Europe

This paper is the first to comprehensively assess the impact of the euro area’s non-standard monetary policy measures on south-eastern Europe. By employing bilateral BVAR models, I am able to estimate the response of output and prices for each country, as well as to shed more light on potential shock transmission channels. The results suggest that the ECB’s non-standard monetary policy measures have had pronounced price effects on all south-eastern European countries, and output effects on approximately half of them. While I also find exports to be a relevant transmission channel in most cases, the interbank market rate responds significantly only in a few cases as the region was subject to significant cross-border bank deleveraging after the crisis. Furthermore, the results suggest that the exchange rate regime does not play a role in determining the sign and magnitude of price level and output responses. This is in line with the absence of distinct exchange rate responses in the model output, suggesting that exchange rates did not act as buffers for spillovers of euro area non-standard monetary policy measures on south-eastern Europe. JEL Classification: C11, C32, E52, F42

Monetary Policy and Bank Profitability in a Low Interest Rate Environment

We analyse the impact of standard and non-standard monetary policy measures on bank profitability. For empirical identification, the analysis focuses on the euro area, thereby exploiting substantial bank and country heterogeneity within a monetary union where the central bank has implemented a broad range of unconventional policies, including quantitative easing and negative interest rates. We use both proprietary and commercial data on individual bank balance sheets and financial market prices. Our results show that monetary policy easing – a decrease in short-term interest rates and/or a flattening of the yield curve – is not associated with lower bank profits once we control for the endogeneity of the policy measures to expected macroeconomic and financial conditions. Importantly, our analysis indicates that the main components of bank profitability are asymmetrically affected by accommodative monetary conditions, with a positive impact on loan loss provisions and non-interest income largely offsetting the negative one on net interest income. We also find that a protracted period of low interest rates might have a negative effect on profits that, however, only materialises after a long period of time and tends to be counterbalanced by improved macroeconomic conditions. In addition, while more operationally efficient banks benefit more from monetary policy easing, banks engaging more extensively in maturity transformation experience a higher increase in profitability after a steepening of the yield curve. Finally, we assess the impact of unconventional monetary policies on market-based measures of expected bank profitability and credit risk, by employing an event study analysis using high frequency data, and find that accommodative monetary policies tend to increase bank stock returns and reduce credit risk.

THE EUROSYSTEM'S MONETARY POLICY IN TIMES OF CRISIS � EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM A VAR ANALYSIS

ABSTRACT After the Lehman crisis in 2008 and to react to the sovereign debt crisis in the EU, the Eurosystem has implemented non-standard monetary policy measures. Before 2008, the price level was controlled with the interest rate. After 2008, the ESCB conducted asset purchase programmes to steer the inflation rate and the overall economic situation. We use Vector Autoregressive (VAR) models to illustrate that the interest rate lost its role as the primary instrument and that the non-standard measures gained importance after 2008. We also show that these new instruments are operating as intended with regard to the objectives of the ESCB. Keywords Monetary transmission, Eurosystem, VAR