Structures financières et canal des taux d'intérêt de la poltique monétaire dans la zone euro

This paper analyses differences in financial structures across euro-area countries and their implications for implementing ECB policy through the interest-rate channel. It focuses on those features of financial structures that may still show differences despite EMU. Firstly, the study examines the pass-through of variations in money-market rates to various bank rates and measures how this pass-through has changed over the last two interest-rate cycles. An econometric analysis suggests that the current asymmetries between countries observed in the response to bank rates should decrease over time with implementation of the single monetary policy, money-market integration and growth of debt securities markets. It is also shown that competition between banks reduces the cyclical asymmetry of bank-rate response. Secondly, recent developments in the balance-sheet structure of households and firms are examined. The paper shows that, at the start of EMU, the income effects of ECB monetary policy were quite homogenous in the four largest euro-area countries, whereas wealth effects would be more noticeable for Italian households owing to the extent of their bond holdings.