Claire Thürwächter
- 17 January 2024
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2891Details
- Abstract
- We study how shocks to corporate leverage alter the macroeconomic transmission of monetary policy. We identify leverage shocks as idiosyncratic firm-level disturbances that are aggregated up to a size-weighted country-level average to generate a Granular Instrumental Variable (Gabaix and Koijen, 2024). Interacting this instrumental variable with high-frequency identified monetary policy shocks, we find that transmission to the price level strengthens in the presence of leverage shocks, while the real effects of monetary policy are unaffected. A price-competitiveness channel rationalizes this disconnect. Economies where leverage increases exhibit a stronger monetary policy-induced contraction in domestic demand. This, however, is counteracted by a weaker drop in exports, supported by a relative decline in unit labor costs and unit profits, which in turn weighs on prices.
- JEL Code
- C36 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models, Multiple Variables→Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
E22 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Capital, Investment, Capacity
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy - Network
- Challenges for Monetary Policy Transmission in a Changing World Network (ChaMP)
- 7 May 2020
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2402Details
- Abstract
- We study how differences in the aggregate structure of corporate debt affect the transmission of monetary policy in a panel of euro area countries. We find that standard policy tightening shocks raise the cost of loans relative to corporate bonds. In economies with a high share of bond finance, the resultant rise in the overall cost of credit is less pronounced as a smaller portion of corporate debt is remunerated at the loan rate and firms further expand their reliance on bonds. In economies with a low share of bond finance, the rise in the cost of credit is reinforced by a shift in the composition of debt towards bank loans. As a consequence, a higher bond share goes along with a weaker transmission of short-term policy rate shocks to real activity. By contrast, the real effects of monetary policy shocks to longer-term yields strengthen with the share of bond finance in the economy.
- JEL Code
- E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G23 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Non-bank Financial Institutions, Financial Instruments, Institutional Investors