Unconventional monetary policy in the Euro area: Impacts on loans, employment, and investment

Abstract

Using a dataset of bank- and regional-level data, we study the effectiveness and heterogeneity of the transmission mechanism of the ECB's large scale asset purchases (LSAPs) to the real economy. Our results indicate that banks more exposed to government debt securities had higher growth of loans and loans relative to total assets than less exposed banks after the asset purchase programme (APP), but not after the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP). Furthermore, our results demonstrate that regions where banks are more exposed to government securities exhibit more favorable outcomes after the APP in GDP, fixed capital formation, unemployment, and compensation of employees than regions with less exposed banks, via the bank lending channel. We argue that banks' exposure to LSAPs targeted assets and their geographical location is an important factor determining the magnitude and heterogeneity of the portfolio rebalancing transmission mechanism to the real economy.