Financial institutions

The effects of monetary policy on banks and non-banks in times of stress

09/17/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

This paper investigates the effects of monetary policy on banks and non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs), with particular attention to the role of financial stress. We use high-frequency identified monetary policy shocks and state-dependent local projections to capture non-linear responses across financial sectors. Drawing on aggregated balance sheet data, including total assets, debt securities, and loans, we find that monetary tightening leads to broad-based contractions in total assets and debt holdings, with particularly pronounced effects for banks and investment funds.

Stylized facts in money markets: an empirical analysis of the eurozone data

09/17/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

Using the secured transactions recorded within the Money Markets Statistical Reporting database of the European Central Bank, we test several stylized facts regarding the interbank market of the 47-largest banks in the eurozone. We observe that the surge in the volume of traded evergreen repurchase agreements followed the introduction of the LCR regulation and we measure a rate of collateral re-use consistent with the literature.

Mortgage loan rates and the defaults of variable rate mortgages

09/16/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

Using a granular database of variable rate euro area loans and analysing their defaults between 2014 and 2019, we show that the effect of interest rate changes on mortgage defaults is highly non-linear. First, we find that the risk associated with higher contemporaneous interest rates is concentrated among borrowers who got the loan at ultra-low interest rates, their default probability being 2.6 times higher than our sample average.

The signaling effects of fiscal announcements

09/15/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

Announcing a large fiscal stimulus may signal the government’s pessimism about the severity of a recession to the private sector, impairing the stabilizing effects of the policy. Using a theoretical model, we show that these signaling effects occur when the stimulus exceeds expectations and are more noticeable during periods of high economic uncertainty. Analysis of a new dataset of daily stock prices and fiscal news in Japan supports these predictions.

The heterogeneous impact of labor market shifts on household mortgage-taking

09/15/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

This paper examines how structural change in labor markets affects household credit outcomes. Using a Shift-Share instrumental variable approach, we find that occupational shifts negatively influence mortgage holding for households facing fa-vorable job market conditions, such as stable employment and income growth. Our results, robust to alternative specifications, suggest that when both individual and economy-wide career prospects are favorable, the opportunity costs of settling down grow accordingly.

The causal effect of inflation on financial stability, evidence from history

09/12/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

In contrast to the conventional Fisherian view that inflation reduces real debt positions, we show that significant increases in inflation are strongly associated with financial crises. In the spirit of Jordà et al. (2020), countries with free and fixed ex-change rates can be compared to difference out the confounding reaction of monetary policy. Across a dataset of 18 advanced economies over 151 years, we show that the impact of inflation extends beyond its indirect effect via monetary policy.

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