IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bog/spaper/26.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Monetary policy and banks in the euro area: the tale of two crises

Author

Listed:
  • Lucrezia Reichlin

    (London Business School and CEPR)

Abstract

The paper is a narrative on monetary policy and the banking sector during the two recent euro area recessions. It shows that while in the two episodes of recession and financial stress the ECB acted aggressively providing liquidity to the banking sector, the second recession, unlike the first, has been characterized by an abnormal decline of loans with respect to both real economic activity and the monetary aggregates. It conjectures that this fact is explained by the postponement of the adjustment in the banking sector by showing that banks, over the 2008-2012 period, did not change neither the capital to asset ratio nor the size of their balance sheet relative to GDP and kept them at the pre-crisis level. The paper also describes other aspects of banks’ balance sheet adjustment during the two crises.

Suggested Citation

  • Lucrezia Reichlin, 2013. "Monetary policy and banks in the euro area: the tale of two crises," Special Conference Papers 26, Bank of Greece.
    • Handle: RePEc:bog:spaper:26
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bankofgreece.gr/BogEkdoseis/SCP201326.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patrick Bolton & Olivier Jeanne, 2011. "Sovereign Default Risk and Bank Fragility in Financially Integrated Economies," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 59(2), pages 162-194, June.
    2. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Huw Pill & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2012. "The ECB and the Interbank Market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(564), pages 467-486, November.
    3. Heider, F. & Hoerova, M. & Holthausen, C., 2009. "Liquidity Hoarding and Interbank Market Spreads : The Role of Counterparty Risk," Discussion Paper 2009-40 S, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    4. Carneiro, Anabela & Portugal, Pedro & Varejão, José, 2014. "Catastrophic job Destruction during the Portuguese Economic Crisis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 444-457.
    5. Freixas, Xavier & Parigi, Bruno M & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 2000. "Systemic Risk, Interbank Relations, and Liquidity Provision by the Central Bank," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(3), pages 611-638, August.
    6. Michele Lenza & Huw Pill & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2010. "Monetary policy in exceptional times [Preventing deflation: Lessons from Japan’s experience in the 1990s]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 25(62), pages 295-339.
    7. George Provopoulos, 2013. "The Greek Economy and Banking System: Recent Developments and the Way Forward," Special Conference Papers 14, Bank of Greece.
    8. Pedro Portugal & Anabela Carneiro, 2013. "Catastrophic Job Destruction," Working Papers w201314, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    9. Padoa-Schioppa, Tommaso, 2004. "Regulating Finance: Balancing Freedom and Risk," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199270569, Decembrie.
    10. De Grauwe, Paul & Ji, Yuemei, 2014. "How much Fiscal Discipline in a Monetary Union?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 348-360.
    11. Xavier Freixas, 2005. "Interbank Market Integration under Asymmetric Information," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(2), pages 459-490.
    12. Gibson, Heather D. & Hall, Stephen G. & Tavlas, George S., 2014. "Fundamentally Wrong: Market Pricing of Sovereigns and the Greek Financial Crisis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 405-419.
    13. Gibson, Heather D. & Palivos, Theodore & Tavlas, George S., 2014. "The Crisis in the Euro Area: An Analytic Overview," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 233-239.
    14. Domenico Giannone & Michèle Lenza & Huw Pill & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2010. "Non‐Standard Monetary Policy Measures," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2010-040, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    15. Polito, Vito & Wickens, Michael, 2014. "How the Euro Crisis Evolved and how to Avoid Another: EMU, Fiscal Policy and Credit Ratings," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 364-374.
    16. Domenico Giannone & Michèle Lenza & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2012. "Money, Credit, Monetary Policy and the Business Cycle in the Euro Area," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2012-008, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    17. Philipp Hartmann & Angela Maddaloni & Simone Manganelli, 2003. "The Euro-area Financial System: Structure, Integration, and Policy Initiatives," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 19(1), pages 180-213.
    18. Michael Bordo & Harold James, 2013. "The European crisis in the context of the history of previous financial crises," Special Conference Papers 18, Bank of Greece.
    19. Eichengreen, Barry & Jung, Naeun & Moch, Stephen & Mody, Ashoka, 2014. "The Eurozone Crisis: Phoenix Miracle or Lost Decade?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 288-308.
    20. Lucrezia Reichlin, 2005. "The Euro area business cycle: stylized facts and measurement issues," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/10173, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Polito, Vito & Wickens, Michael, 2014. "How the Euro Crisis Evolved and how to Avoid Another: EMU, Fiscal Policy and Credit Ratings," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 364-374.
    2. Whelan, Karl, 2014. "Ireland’s Economic Crisis: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 424-440.
    3. Honkapohja, Seppo, 2014. "The Euro Area Crisis: A View from the North," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 260-271.
    4. Eichengreen, Barry & Jung, Naeun & Moch, Stephen & Mody, Ashoka, 2014. "The Eurozone Crisis: Phoenix Miracle or Lost Decade?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 288-308.
    5. Gibson, Heather D. & Hall, Stephen G. & Tavlas, George S., 2014. "Fundamentally Wrong: Market Pricing of Sovereigns and the Greek Financial Crisis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 405-419.
    6. Reichlin, Lucrezia, 2013. "The ECB and the banks: the tale of two crises," CEPR Discussion Papers 9647, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Carneiro, Anabela & Portugal, Pedro & Varejão, José, 2014. "Catastrophic job Destruction during the Portuguese Economic Crisis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 444-457.
    8. Carlo Altavilla & Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza, 2016. "The Financial and Macroeconomic Effects of the OMT Announcements," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(3), pages 29-57, September.
    9. Agur, Itai, 2014. "Bank risk within and across equilibria," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 322-333.
    10. Xavier Freixas, 2009. "Monetary policy in a systemic crisis," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 25(4), pages 630-653, Winter.
    11. FERROUHI, El Mehdi & LEHADIRI, Abderrassoul, 2013. "Liquidity risk and contagion in interbank markets: a presentation of Allen and Gale Model," MPRA Paper 59852, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Frank Schmielewski, 2012. "Leveraging and risk taking within the German banking system: Evidence of the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008," Working Paper Series in Economics 229, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    13. A Durré & H Pill, 2012. "Central Bank balance sheets as policy tools," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Are central bank balance sheets in Asia too large?, volume 66, pages 193-213, Bank for International Settlements.
    14. Michal Kowalik, 2014. "To sell or to borrow: a theory of bank liquidity management," Research Working Paper RWP 14-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    15. Antonio M. Conti & Andrea Nobili & Federico M. Signoretti, 2018. "Bank capital constraints, lending supply and economic activity," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1199, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    16. Michael Joyce & David Miles & Andrew Scott & Dimitri Vayanos, 2012. "Quantitative Easing and Unconventional Monetary Policy – an Introduction," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(564), pages 271-288, November.
    17. A. Colangelo & D. Giannone & M. Lenza & H. Pill & L. Reichlin, 2017. "The national segmentation of euro area bank balance sheets during the financial crisis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 247-265, August.
    18. Agur, Itai, 2009. "Regulatory Competition and Bank Risk Taking," CEPR Discussion Papers 7524, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Gibson, Heather D. & Palivos, Theodore & Tavlas, George S., 2014. "The Crisis in the Euro Area: An Analytic Overview," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 233-239.
    20. Florian Heider & Marie Hoerova, 2009. "Interbank Lending, Credit-Risk Premia, and Collateral," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 5(4), pages 5-43, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic recessions; Financial system; ECB policies; Bank behavior;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bog:spaper:26. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anastasios Rizos (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/boggvgr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.