IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cyb/wpaper/2023-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The inefficiency of Quantitative Easing in the Euro Area

Author

Listed:
  • Nektarios A. Michail

    (Central Bank of Cyprus)

  • Kyriaki G. LouKa

    (Central Bank of Cyprus)

Abstract

We examine whether quantitative easing had an impact on output and inflation in the euro area. Using a BVAR model, over the March 2015 - December 2021 period, our results suggest that quantitative easing is an inefficient policy tool. In particular, following a shock that increases asset purchases by around 1% of euro area GDP, inflation increases by around 0.01%, while industrial production rises by 0.3%. The biggest beneficiary of quantitative easing is the stock market, rising more than 2% after the shock. Since only a very small share of the general populace holds stocks, this has adverse inequality effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Nektarios A. Michail & Kyriaki G. LouKa, 2023. "The inefficiency of Quantitative Easing in the Euro Area," Working Papers 2023-3, Central Bank of Cyprus.
    • Handle: RePEc:cyb:wpaper:2023-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.centralbank.cy/images/media/pdf/WP-Inefficiency-of-QE.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hashem Pesaran, M. & Smith, Ron P., 2016. "Counterfactual analysis in macroeconometrics: An empirical investigation into the effects of quantitative easing," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 262-280.
    2. Uhlig, Harald, 2005. "What are the effects of monetary policy on output? Results from an agnostic identification procedure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 381-419, March.
    3. Hiona Balfoussia & Heather D. Gibson, 2016. "Financial conditions and economic activity: the potential impact of the targeted long-term refinancing operations (TLTROs)," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(6), pages 449-456, April.
    4. Litterman, Robert B, 1986. "Forecasting with Bayesian Vector Autoregressions-Five Years of Experience," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 4(1), pages 25-38, January.
    5. Fabo, Brian & Jančoková, Martina & Kempf, Elisabeth & Pástor, Ľuboš, 2021. "Fifty shades of QE: Comparing findings of central bankers and academics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-20.
    6. Altavilla, Carlo & Burlon, Lorenzo & Giannetti, Mariassunta & Holton, Sarah, 2022. "Is there a zero lower bound? The effects of negative policy rates on banks and firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 885-907.
    7. De Santis, Roberto A., 2020. "Impact of the Asset Purchase Programme on euro area government bond yields using market news," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 192-209.
    8. Christopher Martin & Costas Milas, 2012. "Quantitative easing: a sceptical survey," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 28(4), pages 750-764, WINTER.
    9. Tarek Chebbi, 2019. "What does unconventional monetary policy do to stock markets in the euro area?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 391-411, January.
    10. Nektarios A. Michail & Konstantinos D. Melas & Lena Cleanthous, 2022. "The relationship between shipping freight rates and inflation in the Euro Area," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 172, pages 40-49.
    11. Shane Frederick & George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue, 2002. "Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 351-401, June.
    12. Leonardo Gambacorta & Boris Hofmann & Gert Peersman, 2014. "The Effectiveness of Unconventional Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound: A Cross‐Country Analysis," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(4), pages 615-642, June.
    13. George Kapetanios & Haroon Mumtaz & Ibrahim Stevens & Konstantinos Theodoridis, 2012. "Assessing the Economy‐wide Effects of Quantitative Easing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(564), pages 316-347, November.
    14. Luca Giangregorio & Davide Villani, 2023. "Income inequality, top shares of income and social classes in the 21st century," Working Papers 646, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    15. Fabian Eser & Wolfgang Lemke & Ken Nyholm & Sören Radde & Andreea Liliana Vladu, 2023. "Tracing the Impact of the ECB’s Asset Purchase Program on the Yield Curve," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 19(3), pages 359-422, August.
    16. Charles A. E. Goodhart & Jonathan P. Ashworth, 2012. "QE: a successful start may be running into diminishing returns," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 28(4), pages 640-670, WINTER.
    17. Haliassos, Michael & Bertaut, Carol C, 1995. "Why Do So Few Hold Stocks?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(432), pages 1110-1129, September.
    18. Michael, Maria & Christofides, Louis N., 2020. "The impact of austerity measures on the public - private sector wage gap in Europe," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    19. Carlo Altavilla & Giacomo Carboni & Roberto Motto, 2021. "Asset Purchase Programs and Financial Markets: Lessons from the Euro Area," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 17(70), pages 1-48, October.
    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. Fabo, Brian & Jančoková, Martina & Kempf, Elisabeth & Pástor, Ľuboš, 2021. "Fifty shades of QE: Comparing findings of central bankers and academics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-20.
    2. Fabo, Brian & Jančoková, Martina & Kempf, Elisabeth & Pástor, Ľuboš, 2024. "Fifty shades of QE: Robust evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    3. Andrejs Zlobins, 2021. "On the Time-varying Effects of the ECB's Asset Purchases," Working Papers 2021/02, Latvijas Banka.
    4. Matthias Neuenkirch, 2020. "An Unconventional Approach to Evaluate the Bank of England’s Asset Purchase Program," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 79-94, February.
    5. Anastasios Evgenidis & Apostolos Fasianos, 2021. "Unconventional Monetary Policy and Wealth Inequalities in Great Britain," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(1), pages 115-175, February.
    6. Matthieu Darracq Paries, 2018. "Financial frictions and monetary policy conduct," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph18-01 edited by Ferhat Mihoubi, December.
    7. Hartmann, Philipp & Smets, Frank, 2018. "The first twenty years of the European Central Bank: monetary policy," Working Paper Series 2219, European Central Bank.
    8. Maciej Stefański, 2021. "Macroeconomic Effects of Quantitative Easing Using Mid-sized Bayesian Vector Autoregressions," KAE Working Papers 2021-068, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis.
    9. Wieladek, Tomasz & Garcia Pascual, Antonio, 2016. "The European Central Bank’s QE: A new hope," CEPR Discussion Papers 11309, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Shogbuyi, Abiodun & Steeley, James M., 2017. "The effect of quantitative easing on the variance and covariance of the UK and US equity markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 281-291.
    11. Maria Sole Pagliari, 2021. "Does one (unconventional) size fit all? Effects of the ECB's unconventional monetary policies on the euro area economies," Working papers 829, Banque de France.
    12. Kok, Christoffer & Darracq Pariès, Matthieu & Hałaj, Grzegorz, 2016. "Bank capital structure and the credit channel of central bank asset purchases," Working Paper Series 1916, European Central Bank.
    13. Sleibi, Yacoub & Casalin, Fabrizio & Fazio, Giorgio, 2023. "Unconventional monetary policies and credit co-movement in the Eurozone," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    14. Claudio Borio & Anna Zabai, 2018. "Unconventional monetary policies: a re-appraisal," Chapters, in: Peter Conti-Brown & Rosa M. Lastra (ed.), Research Handbook on Central Banking, chapter 20, pages 398-444, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Weale, Martin & Wieladek, Tomasz, 2016. "What are the macroeconomic effects of asset purchases?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 81-93.
    16. Darracq Pariès, Matthieu & Papadopoulou, Niki X., 2020. "On the credit and exchange rate channels of central bank asset purchases in a monetary union," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 502-533.
    17. Ellington, Michael & Milas, Costas, 2021. "On the economic impact of aggregate liquidity shocks: The case of the UK," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 737-752.
    18. Urbschat, Florian & Watzka, Sebastian, 2020. "Quantitative easing in the Euro Area – An event study approach," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 14-36.
    19. Stefański, Maciej, 2022. "Macroeconomic effects and transmission channels of quantitative easing," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    20. Grahame Johnson & Sharon Kozicki & Romanos Priftis & Lena Suchanek & Jonathan Witmer & Jing Yang, 2020. "Implementation and Effectiveness of Extended Monetary Policy Tools: Lessons from the Literature," Discussion Papers 2020-16, Bank of Canada.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    quantitative easing; euro area; inequality; asset purchases;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models

    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:cyb:wpaper:2023-3. 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: Anna Markidou (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cbcgvcy.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.