Portfolio Rebalancing Channel Research Articles

International bank lending channel of monetary policy

How does domestic monetary policy in systemic countries spillover to the rest of the world? This paper examines the transmission channel of domestic monetary policy in the cross-border context. We use exogenous shocks to monetary policy in systemically important economies, including the U.S., and local projections to estimate the dynamic effect of monetary policy shocks on bilateral cross-border bank lending. We find robust evidence that an increase in funding costs following an exogenous monetary tightening leads to a statistically and economically significant decline in cross-border bank lending. The effect is weakened during periods of high uncertainty. In contrast, the effect is found to not vary according to the degree of borrower country riskiness, further weakening support for the international portfolio rebalancing channel.

Unconventional Monetary Policy, Bank Lending, and Security Holdings: The Yield-Induced Portfolio-Rebalancing Channel

AbstractThis article studies the impact of unconventional monetary policy on bank lending and security holdings. I exploit granular security register data and use a difference- in-differences regression setup to provide evidence for a yield-induced portfolio rebalancing: Banks experiencing large average yield declines in their securities portfolio, induced by unconventional monetary policy, increase their real-sector lending more strongly relative to other banks. The effect is stronger for banks facing many reinvestment decisions. Moreover, I find that banks with large yield declines reduce their government bond holdings and sell securities bought under the asset-purchase program of the European Central Bank (ECB).

Dissecting long-term Bund yields in the run-up to the ECB’s public sector purchase programme

In the run-up to the ECB’s public sector purchase programme in March 2015, German government bond yields declined significantly. Using an affine term structure model, we provide evidence that the yield declines are almost fully attributable to a decline in the term premium as opposed to the expectations component. This speaks in favour of a portfolio re-balancing channel being at work rather than a (policy rate) signalling channel. The result proves robust against changing the number of factors in the model, the estimation sample and the estimation approach.

The role of carry trades on the effectiveness of Japan's quantitative easing

This paper investigates how carry trades altered the efficiency of the Japanese quantitative easing policy between March 1995 and September 2010. Monetary policy shocks are identified by means of a data-driven Structural VAR approach. Accordingly, our results rely exclusively on the statistical properties of the data through non-Gaussian identification. We show that carry trades, by altering the portfolio re-balancing channel, have attenuated the impact of the Japanese quantitative easing policy on growth.

Quantitative easing in the Euro Area – An event study approach

We examine the effects of the Asset Purchase Programme (APP) gradually introduced by the European Central Bank from September 2014 onwards. Studying the short-term reaction of financial markets after APP press releases, we analyse the development of bond yields and spreads around these releases. More precisely, we try to estimate different asset price channels by quantifying the cumulative decrease of spreads and by running event regressions for several Euro Area countries. Focusing on the signalling channel, measured by the OIS rate, and the portfolio rebalancing channel, proxied by the conditional bond-OIS spread, we find that the effects in yield and spread reduction were most pronounced for the initial announcement on the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) but declined afterwards for additional announcements. Possible explanations for this are the declining degree to which the ECB surprised markets and the increasingly burdensome institutional set-up of the APP. While yield reductions were larger for periphery countries’ than for core countries’ bonds, our evidence suggests that this stronger reduction is mostly due to a decreasing risk component of southern bonds. In fact, once controlling for this implicit credit risk reduction we find rather mild effects from portfolio rebalancing for all countries.

International Bank Lending Channel of Monetary Policy

How does domestic monetary policy in systemic countries spillover to the rest of the world? This paper examines the transmission channel of domestic monetary policy in the cross-border context. We use exogenous shocks to monetary policy in systemically important economies, including the U.S., and local projections to estimate the dynamic effect of monetary policy shocks on bilateral cross-border bank lending. We find robust evidence that an increase in funding costs following an exogenous monetary tightening leads to a statistically and economically significant decline in cross-border bank lending. The effect is weakened during periods of high uncertainty. In contrast, the effect is found to not vary according to the degree of borrower country riskiness, further weakening support for the international portfolio rebalancing channel.

Transmission Channels of Central Bank Asset Purchases in the Irish Economy

The European Central Bank (ECB) engaged in an expanded asset purchase programme (APP) from 2014 to 2018 to help achieve their primary objective of price stability. Total assets purchased over this period was over €2.5 trillion and new net purchases ended in December 2018. This paper identifies whether the ECB’s APP in Ireland operated through the portfolio rebalancing channel, the signalling channel or the lending channel. It presents a quantitative descriptive analysis of some key Irish data sets in the 2014–2018 period and uses time-series visualisation and trend analysis to identify trends and correlations. There are a number of preliminary findings. First, much downward pressure on sovereign debt yields and spreads had occurred before the APP began due to previous accommodative monetary policy and the signalling channel. Second, the corporate-sector purchase programme (CSPP) did impact on targeted bonds and may have had spill overs to non-targeted bonds. Third, the APP did not lead to much increased lending to the SME sector. Fourth, while households did engage in traditional portfolio rebalancing, Irish banks did not and were perhaps more motivated to meet their capital requirements and manage their level of reserves. This is a first step towards understanding the transmission channels of ECB policy in Ireland and more work needs to be done to detangle the transmission of the most recent APP from other factors and consider these findings in the context of theoretical models. Such work is important to help inform policy makers on enhancing the transmission mechanism to the Irish economy of the recently launched new ECB asset purchase programme from November 2019.

Effects of QE on Sovereign Bond Spreads Through the Safe Asset Channel

We show that through the safe asset channel the excess liquidity created by QE can lead to higher sovereign bond spreads in the euro area. This unintended effect is most likely in stressed markets when excess liquidity spurs demand for tradeable safe assets, pushing down the interest rate of these assets, which widens risk spreads. Outcomes of a panel regression model estimated for individual euro area countries confirm that the excess liquidity created by QE had an upward effect on sovereign bond spreads. It indicates that the safe asset channel dominates the usual portfolio rebalancing channel. For monetary policy the results imply that QE is not an appropriate instrument to address country specific shocks.

Impact of US unconventional monetary policy on dynamic stock-bond correlations: Portfolio rebalancing and signalling channel effects

This paper investigates the impacts of both the portfolio rebalancing and signalling channel effects associated with US unconventional monetary policy on the dynamic correlation between the stock and bond markets at different levels of stock-bond market correlation distributions. The empirical results reveal that the portfolio rebalancing channel has a strong and predominantly negative effect on the dynamic stock-bond market correlations. In contrast, the signalling channel positively affects the dynamic stock-bond market correlations. The results also provide evidence of an asymmetric effect at the lower quantiles. These findings hence provide valuable information for policymakers, traders and portfolio managers.

The CSPP at work: Yield heterogeneity and the portfolio rebalancing channel

We assess the impact of the corporate sector purchase programme (CSPP), the corporate arm of the ECB's quantitative easing, over its first year of activity (June 2016 – June 2017). Focusing on the primary bond market, we find evidence of a significant impact of the CSPP on yield spreads, both directly on purchased and targeted bonds and indirectly on all other bonds. The magnitude and the timing of the changes in yield spreads, coupled with the evolution of bond placements, are fully consistent with the proper unfolding the portfolio rebalancing channel.

The CSPP at Work - Yield Heterogeneity and the Portfolio Rebalancing Channel

We assess the impact of the corporate sector purchase programme (CSPP), the corporate arm of the ECB’s quantitative easing policy, in its first year of activity (June 2016 – May 2017). Focusing on the primary bond market, we find evidence of a significant impact of the CSPP on yield spreads, both directly on targeted bonds and indirectly via the portfolio rebalancing channel. While spreads on eligible bonds have declined since the start of the programme (by 60 basis points in 2016), non-eligible bonds remained unaffected until 2017, when the entire corporate market recorded a further decline in spreads of 56 basis points.

Negative Monetary Policy Rates and Portfolio Rebalancing: Evidence from Credit Register Data

We study negative interest rate policy (NIRP) exploiting ECB's NIRP introduction and administrativedata from Italy, severely hit by the Eurozone crisis. NIRP has expansionary effects on credit supply---and hence the real economy---through a portfolio rebalancing channel. NIRP affects banks withhigher ex-ante net short-term interbank positions or, more broadly, more liquid balance-sheets, notwith higher retail deposits. NIRP-affected banks rebalance their portfolios from liquid assets tocredit-especially to riskier and smaller firms-and cut loan rates, inducing sizable real effects. Byshifting the entire yield curve downwards, NIRP differs from rate cuts just above the ZLB.

Negative Monetary Policy Rates and Portfolio Rebalancing: Evidence from Credit Register Data

We study negative interest rate policy (NIRP) exploiting ECB’s NIRP introduction and administrative data from Italy, severely hit by the Eurozone crisis. NIRP has expansionary effects on credit supply—and hence the real economy—through a portfolio rebalancing channel. NIRP affects banks with higher ex-ante net short-term interbank positions or, more broadly, more liquid balance-sheets, not with higher retail deposits. NIRP-affected banks rebalance their portfolios from liquid assets to credit—especially to riskier and smaller firms—and cut loan rates, inducing sizable real effects. By shifting the entire yield curve downwards, NIRP differs from rate cuts just above the ZLB.

International Bank Lending Channel of Monetary Policy

How does domestic monetary policy in systemic countries spillover to the rest of the world? This paper examines the transmission channel of domestic monetary policy in the cross-border context. We use exogenous shocks to monetary policy in systemically important economies, including the U.S., and local projections to estimate the dynamic effect of monetary policy shocks on bilateral cross-border bank lending. We find robust evidence that an increase in funding costs following an exogenous monetary tightening leads to a statistically and economically significant decline in cross-border bank lending. The effect is weakened during periods of high uncertainty. In contrast, the effect is found to not vary according to the degree of borrower country riskiness, further weakening support for the international portfolio rebalancing channel.

International Bank Lending Channel of Monetary Policy

How does domestic monetary policy in systemic countries spillover to the rest of the world? This paper examines the transmission channel of domestic monetary policy in the cross-border context. We use exogenous shocks to monetary policy in systemically important economies, including the U.S., and local projections to estimate the dynamic effect of monetary policy shocks on bilateral cross-border bank lending. We find robust evidence that an increase in funding costs following an exogenous monetary tightening leads to a statistically and economically significant decline in cross-border bank lending. The effect is weakened during periods of high uncertainty. In contrast, the effect is found to not vary according to the degree of borrower country riskiness, further weakening support for the international portfolio rebalancing channel.

Spillover Effects from the ECB‘s Unconventional Monetary Policies: The Case of Denmark, Norway and Sweden

Using event-study techniques we investigate the impact of ECB’s announcements of nonstandard policy measures on a broad range of financial assets from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. We find evidence that unconventional monetary policy announcements by the ECB resulted in pronounced spillovers to Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In particular, our results suggest that medium- and long-term government bond yields, corporate bond yields and CDS spreads were affected by ECB’s announcements of non-standard policy measures. Our empirical results indicate that the portfolio rebalancing channel played an important role in the transmission of ECB’s non-standard policy measures on mediumand long-term government bonds and corporate bond yields. However, it also seems that declining government bond yields transmitted to decreasing corporate bond yields. Moreover, our results suggest that benchmark stock market indices and exchange rates vis-A -vis the euro were mainly unaffected by ECB’s announcements of unconventional monetary policies. Furthermore, we find pronounced spillover effects from Forward Guidance statements, Securities Markets Programme announcements, and Corporate Sector Purchase Programme announcements on financial assets from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Though, our results highly depend on the monetary policy surprise measure used in our regressions and the degree of policy anticipationKeywords: Budgetary Policy, Capital Taxation Rate, Consumption Taxation Rate, DSGE Model, Labor Taxation Rate, Wages Rigidity

Diminishing Returns of QE from Portfolio Rebalancing

The author shows in a CAPM framework that asset risk can be a serious impediment for the portfolio rebalancing channel of quantitative easing (QE). Investors are less willing to take higher risk when excess returns decline due to asset purchases by the central bank. The reduced effectiveness of QE holds in particular when credit spreads are compressed. This can explain why QE has diminishing returns.

Quantitative Easing and Preferred Habitat Investors in the Euro Area Bond Market

Quantitative easing (QE) aims to lower long term interest rates and stimulate economic growth via the portfolio rebalancing channel. One of the assumptions for QE to work is that there are investors with strong preferences to hold long term bonds, i.e. so called preferred habitat investors. This paper investigates whether the ECB’s Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) affected euro area investors’ demand for bonds using granular securities holdings data. The results show strong evidence that euro area investors acted as preferred habitat investors. These findings hold across all major euro area investors (banks, insurance companies, pension funds and investment funds). The results suggest that since the sellers of bonds in response to QE in the euro area are different from those that sold to the Fed, BoE and BoJ, policymakers need to pay particular attention to demand by non-euro area investors, especially if the ECB plans to reduce its balance sheet.

Portfolio Rebalancing and the Transmission of Large-Scale Asset Programmes: Evidence from the Euro Area

Large-scale asset programmes aim to impact the real economy through the financial system. The ECB has focused much of its policies on safe assets. An intended channel of transmission of this type of programme is the “portfolio rebalancing channel”, whereby investors are influenced to shift their investments away from such safe assets towards assets with higher expected returns, including lending to households and firms. We examine the portfolio rebalancing channel around the ECB’s asset purchase program (APP). We exploit cross-sectional heterogeneity in the impact of APP on the valuation of the financial portfolio held by different sectors of the European economy. Overall, our results provide evidence of an active portfolio rebalancing channel. In more vulnerable countries, where macroeconomic unbalances and relatively high risk premia remain, APP was mostly reflected into a rebalancing towards riskier securities. In less vulnerable countries, where constraints on loan demand and supply are less significant, the rebalancing was observed mostly in terms of bank loans. Examining large European banks, we confirm similar geographical differences.

A New Wave of Ecb's Unconventional Monetary Policies: Domestic Impact and Spillovers

ECB President Draghi's Jackson Hole speech in August 2014 arguably marked a new phase of unconventional monetary policies (UMPs) in the euro area. This paper examines the market impact and tranmission channels of this new wave of UMPs using a modified event study framework. They are found to have a more prominent impact on inflation expectations and exchange rates compared to the earlier UMP announcements. The impact on bank equity, however, is less significant in part due to narrowing profit margin in a low interest rate environment; and the marginal effect on sovereign spread compression has diminished. By extracting components of monetary policy shocks from the yield curve, we find that the traditional signaling channel of the monetary policy transmission continued to play an important role, but the portfolio rebalancing channel became more important in the new phase. Spillovers to non-euro area EU countries (the Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland, and Sweden) are transmitted mainly through the portfolio rebalancing channel, largely affecting sovereign yields and exchange rates.