Securities Markets Programme Research Articles

Lending effects of the ECB’s asset purchases

Between 2010 and 2012, the European Central Bank absorbed €218 billion worth of government securities from five EMU countries under the Securities Markets Programme (SMP). Detailed security holdings data at the bank level affirms an effective lending stimulus due to the SMP. Exposed banks contract household lending, but increase commercial lending substantially. Holding non-SMP securities from stressed EMU countries amplifies the commercial lending response. The SMP also improved liquidity buffers and profitability without compromising credit quality.

ECB's unconventional monetary policies and the European bank stock returns

This paper examines the impact of the four unconventional monetary policy announcements followed by the European Central Bank on the stock price of European banks, as well as on the STOXX Europe 600 Banks index, from January 2010 to December 2016. The results show that there is a positive relation between the announced programs and the stock returns of the European banks at the same day of the announcement, while the impact is stronger for the long-term sovereign bond purchases (Securities Markets Programme). We also find that the banks of the countries which benefit most from the unconventional policies are these from Southern Europe. On the contrary, the announcement of these programs displays a limited effect on the banks of the European core countries and those with solid banking system. Finally, the announcements seem to reduce the volatility of stock prices and especially for the Covered Bond Purchase Programme (CBPP3).

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

The Liquidity Effects of Official Bond Market Intervention

To “ensure depth and liquidity,” the European Central Bank intervened in sovereign debt markets through its Securities Markets Programme (SMP), providing a unique opportunity to estimate the effects of large-scale asset purchases on sovereign bond liquidity premia. From reduced-form estimates, we find robust, economically significant impact and lasting reductions in sovereign bonds’ liquidity premia in response to official purchases. We develop a search-based asset-pricing model to understand our empirical results. The theory implies that bond liquidity premia fall in response to both official purchases and rising sovereign default probabilities, as seen in the data.

Non-Standard Monetary Policies Implemented By The European Central Bank After The Financial Crisis

The financial crisis which began in the U.S. in 2007 influenced all economies on a global scale following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. As a response to the crisis, central banks started to implement non-standard monetary policy tools as well as short-term interest rates also known as standard policy tools in order to help monetary policy transmission channels work effectively. The European Central Bank (ECB) implemented non-standard monetary policies as in addition to the standard policy tools during this period. The non-standard monetary policies introduced by the ECB were different from those implemented by other central banks (Fed, Bank of England) in terms of implementation and results. Firstly, the policies of the ECB were not specific to one single country. Secondly, the banking system was the major source of finance in Europe, which had an impact on the policies. In this regard, the ECB introduced a policy of enhanced credit support consisting of five main elements in order to maintain price stability over the medium term following the crisis. By 2010, public debt in some member countries of the European Union reached high levels, requiring them to take additional measures. The Securities Markets Programme was introduced to that end. Initially focusing on the debt securities of Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, the Securities Markets Programme was expanded in August 2011 to cover the debt securities of Italy and Spain. In addition, two Long-term Refinancing Operations (LTROs) were introduced. This article presents a descriptive analysis of the non-standard monetary policy tools introduced by the ECB following the financial crisis. However, the monetary policy implemented in the Euro zone is not specific to one single country, and every country has a different financial structure, both of which limit the effectiveness of the policies implemented. The changing structure of the monetary policy implemented in the aftermath of the crisis aims to help the transmission channel work effectively. This depends on countries’ having a strong budget and financial structure as well as an effective monetary policy. Therefore, general economic factors may have complicated impacts on shaping the expected results of the policies when there are various implementations of monetary policies.

The effectiveness of the ECB’s unconventional monetary policy: Comparative evidence from crisis and non-crisis Euro-area countries

During the European financial crisis, the European Central Bank implemented a series of unconventional monetary policy measures. We argue that these programs lowered the bond yield spreads of Euro-area countries. This hypothesis is tested using pooled OLS estimations and two different datasets: monetary policy event dummies and the purchase volumes of the Securities Markets Programme (SMP). Overall, we find significantly negative effects on bond yield spreads for both datasets, leading us to accept the hypothesis. While the OMT reduces the spreads of both crisis and non-crisis countries, LTROs and the lowering of the deposit rate to 0 percent are mainly effective in non-crisis countries. The SMP lowers the spreads of crisis countries, but it has the opposite effect on non-crisis countries. This converse effect is explained by the risk that increasingly accumulates on the ECB’s balance sheet through the SMP and that way constitutes a fiscal risk for non-crisis countries. The results are confirmed by pooled OLS estimations that measure the effect of unconventional monetary policy on central government debt.

Realized (co)variances of eurozone sovereign yields during the crisis: The impact of news and the Securities Markets Programme

We use realized variances and covariances based on intraday data to measure the dependence structure of eurozone sovereign yields. Our analysis focuses on the impact of news, obtained from the Eurointelligence newsflash, on the dependence structure. More news tends to raise the volatility of yields of financially-distressed countries and to decrease the covariance of distressed countries’ yields with German bond yields, suggesting a potential flight-to-quality effect. Common news about the euro crisis and news about specific countries tend to raise the covariance of yields between distressed countries, indicating potential crisis spill-over effects. However, we do not detect spillover effects from news about third countries to the covariance between other country pairs. Bond purchases by the ECB under its Securities Markets Programme (SMP) mitigate the negative crisis spillovers among the distressed countries and reduce the potential flight-to-quality from the distressed countries to Germany.

Debt crisis and 10-year sovereign yields in Ireland and in Portugal

ABSTRACTWe assess the determinants of the 10-year sovereign yield for the period 2000–2015, in Portugal and in Ireland. Results show that the long-term Portuguese sovereign yield increased with the rise of the 10-year Bund yield and during the Securities Markets Programme, but decreased due to financial integration. Additionally, during the period of the economic and financial adjustment programme, there was evidence of additional rises (decreases) due to increases (decreases) in the 3-month Euribor rate, and the level of public debt. EU/IMF funding reduced sovereign yield.

A High-Frequency assessment of the ECB Securities Markets Programme

Policy impact studies often suffer from endogeneity problems. Consider the case of the European Central Bank (ECB) Securities Markets Programme: If Eurosystem interventions were triggered by sudden and strong price deteriorations, looking at daily price changes may bias downward the correlation between yields and the amounts of bonds purchased. Simple regressions of daily changes in yields on quantities often give insignificant or even positive coefficients and therefore suggest that Securities Markets Programme (SMP) interventions have been ineffective, or worse counterproductive. We use high-frequency data on purchases of the ECB Securities Markets Programme and sovereign bond quotes to address the simultaneity and endogeneity issues. We propose a Vector AutoRegressive (VAR) framework estimated at several frequencies to better measure the SMP impact and its persistence. Our results show that SMP interventions have been effective in reducing yields of government bonds for the countries under the program.

The Liquidity Effects of Official Bond Market Intervention

To "ensure depth and liquidity," the European Central Bank in 2010 and 2011 repeatedly intervened in sovereign debt markets through its Securities Markets Programme. These purchases provide a unique natural experiment for testing the effects of large-scale asset purchases on risk premia arising from liquidity concerns. To explore how official intervention influences liquidity premia, we develop a search-based asset-pricing model. Consistent with our model's predictions, we find statistically and economically significant stock and ow effects on sovereign bonds' liquidity premia in response to official purchases.

Evaluating the impact of unconventional monetary policy measures: Empirical evidence from the ECB׳s Securities Markets Programme

We assess the yield impact of asset purchases within the European Central Bank׳s (ECB) Securities Markets Programme (SMP) in five euro area sovereign bond markets from 2010–11. In addition to large announcement effects, we find an impact of approximately −3 basis points at the five-year maturity for purchases of 1/1000 of the outstanding debt. Bond yield volatility and tail risk are lower on intervention days for most SMP countries. A dynamic specification points to both transitory and long-run effects. Purchases improved liquidity conditions and reduced default-risk premia, while the signaling of future low interest rates did not play a role.

Announcements of ECB unconventional programs: Implications for the sovereign spreads of stressed euro area countries

This paper studies the effects of ECB communications about unconventional monetary policy operations on the sovereign spreads of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain relative to Germany between 2008 and 2012. More than fifty events concerning non-standard operations are identified and classified with respect to the specific ECB program. The empirical results suggest that the ECB announcements about unconventional monetary policies substantially reduced long-term government bond yield spreads relative to German counterparts in all countries, except Greece. Particularly, among the different types of measures, news about the Securities Markets Programme strongly affected the perceived sovereign risk of the five stressed euro area countries, while the announcements of the Outright Monetary Transactions seem to have a significant impact only in Italy and Spain.

The Liquidity Effects of Official Bond Market Intervention

To ensure depth and liquidity, the European Central Bank in 2010 and 2011 repeatedly intervened in sovereign debt markets through its Securities Markets Programme. These purchases provide a unique natural experiment for testing the effects of large-scale asset purchases on risk premia arising from liquidity concerns. To explore how official intervention influences liquidity premia, we develop a search-based asset-pricing model. Consistent with our model's predictions, we find statistically and economically significant stock and flow effects on sovereign bonds' liquidity premia in response to official purchases.

A Dynamic Yield Curve Model with Stochastic Volatility and Non-Gaussian Interactions: An Empirical Study of Non-Standard Monetary Policy in the Euro Area

We develop an econometric methodology for the study of the yield curve and its interactions with measures of non-standard monetary policy during possibly turbulent times. The yield curve is modeled by the dynamic Nelson-Siegel model while the monetary policy measurements are modeled as non-Gaussian variables that interact with latent dynamic factors, including the yield factors of level and slope. Yield developments during the financial and sovereign debt crises require the yield curve model to be extended with stochastic volatility and heavy tailed disturbances. We develop a flexible estimation method for the model parameters with a novel implementation of the importance sampling technique. We empirically investigate how the yields in Germany, France, Italy and Spain have been a ected by monetary policy measures of the European Central Bank. We model the euro area interbank lending rate EONIA by a log-normal distribution and the bond market purchases within the ECB's Securities Markets Programme by a Poisson distribution. We nd evidence that the bond market interventions had a direct and temporary e ect on the yield curve lasting up to ten weeks, and nd limited evidence that purchases changed the relationship between the EONIA rate and the term structure factors.

Deciphering the ECB Securities Markets Programme: The Case of Greek Bonds

This paper analyses the determinants and of ECB interventions in times of severe distress. We focus on the Greek government bond market in mid-2010 and use a unique new dataset to show, for the first time, what type of bonds the ECB bought. We then explore the short-term of ECB purchases at the bond-level. The results show a large impact of the interventions on the targeted instruments. Bonds bought by the ECB see a much steeper drop in yields than those not bought. This is consistent with theories of local supply effects in segmented or illiquid bond markets.‬

Law Meets Economics in the German Federal Constitutional Court: Outright Monetary Transactions on Trial

The Eurozone banking and sovereign debt crisis has brought the fragility of the European monetary union into sharp focus and exposed the lack of effective instruments at the European level to maintain financial stability. As a response to the crisis, the Member States and the institutions of the Union adopted in short succession several financial assistance measures that have given rise to much political and legal controversy. The European Central Bank (ECB) played an active role in the institutions' efforts to contain the crisis and prevent the disintegration of the Eurozone by deploying a number of so-called non-standard or unconventional monetary policy measures, namely its Securities Markets Programme, Long-Term Refinancing Operations, and in September 2012 the Outright Monetary Transactions Programme (OMT Programme). The OMT Decision envisages unlimited purchases by the ECB of specific types of sovereign bonds issued by Member States participating in an EFSF/ESM macroeconomic adjustment or precautionary program in the secondary market. Without the program having been activated, i.e. without the ECB actually implementing the decision and without any purchases of government bonds, yields on bonds of the affected Eurozone countries decreased markedly after the announcement of the OMT Decision. The OMT Programme has accordingly been credited with having been instrumental in restoring financial stability and preventing a breakup of the Euro area and with being one of the most effective announcements any central bank has ever made.

The Impact of News and the SMP on Realized (Co)Variances in the Eurozone Sovereign Debt Market

We use realized variances and covariances based on intraday data from Eurozone sovereign bond market to measure the dependence structure of eurozone sovereign yields. Our analysis focuses on the impact of news, obtained from the Eurointelligence newsflash, on the dependence structure. More news raises the volatility of interest rates of financially distressed countries and decreases the covariance of distressed countries' yields with German bond yields, suggesting a flight-to-quality effect. Common news about the euro crisis and news about specific countries itself tend to raise the covariance of yields between distressed countries, indicating potential crisis spill-over effects. However, we do not detect spillover effects from news about third countries to the covariance between other country pairs. Bond purchases by the ECB under its Securities Markets Programme (SMP) mitigate the negative crisis spillovers among the distressed countries and reduce the flight-to-safety from the distressed countries to Germany.

A High Frequency Assessment of the ECB Securities Markets Programme

Policy impact studies often suffer from endogeneity problems. Consider the case of the ECB Securities Markets Programme: If Eurosystem interventions were triggered by sudden and strong price deteriorations, looking at daily price changes may bias downwards the correlation between yields and the amounts of bonds purchased. Simple regression of daily changes in yields on quantities often give insignificant or even positive coefficients and therefore suggest that SMP interventions have been ineffective, or worse counterproductive. We use high frequency data on purchases of the ECB Securities Markets Programme and sovereign bond quotes to address the endogeneity issues. We propose an econometric model that considers, simultaneously, first and second conditional moments of market price returns at daily and intradaily frequency. We find that SMP interventions succeeded in reducing yields and volatility of government bond segments of the countries under the programme. Finally, the new econometric model is broadly applicable to market intervention studies.

Was the Securities Markets Programme Effective?

We examine whether the ECB's Securities Markets Programme (SMP) was effective in reversing or stabilising adverse movements in Irish sovereign yields. Our initial analysis examines whether daily yield movements responded significantly to interventions. At the daily frequency we find no significant effects despite dealing with endogeneity and omitted variable bias. In contrast, making use of the exact timing of interventions and movements in high-frequency inter-dealer quotes, we find clear evidence that SMP stabilised yields on average from the moment of the initial intervention until the end of trading on intervention days. However, adverse pre-intervention movements were significant and these were seldom reversed by intervention effects.

Assessing Asset Purchases within the ECB’s Securities Markets Programme

We assess the yield impact of asset purchases within the ECB’s Securities Markets Programme in five euro area sovereign bond markets during 2010-11. Identification is non-trivial and based on time series panel data regression on predetermined purchases and control covariates. In addition to large and economically significant announcement effects, we find an average impact at the five year maturity per e1 bn of bond purchases of approximately -1 to -2 bps (Italy), -3 bps (Ireland), -4 to -6 bps (Spain), -6 to -9 bps (Portugal), and up to -17 to -21 bps (Greece). The impact depends on market size and a default risk signal, and is approximately -3 basis points at a five-year maturity for purchases of 1/1000 of the respective debt market. Bond yield volatility is lower on intervention days for most SMP countries, due to less extreme movements occurring when the Eurosystem is active as a buyer. A dynamic specification points to both transitory and longer-lived effects from purchases. JEL Classification: C32, G12