Partie III. La politique monétaire de la BCE et la crise du Covid-19

The crisis arising from the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic has once again prompted central banks to ease the stance of monetary policy, which has resulted in the massive use of unconventional measures. This has resulted in a sharp increase in the size of their balance sheets. By increasing their asset purchase programmes, the central banks have also absorbed a large part of the debt issued by governments in 2020 to deal with the crisis. In the euro zone, the ECB launched a new programme, the PEPP, which is designed to reduce the risk of fragmentation. This article assesses the effect of this programme on sovereign interest rate spreads in the euro area and also the effect of the monetary policy announcements made since the beginning of the crisis on financing conditions in the euro area. The results suggest that the package of measures adopted has had a significant effect on sovereign interest rates and stock market indices. Furthermore, the results of our estimations indicate that, under the PEPP, an increase in the flow of securities purchases is reducing the spreads of countries generally considered to be fragile, in particular Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece.