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

Lucrezia Reichlin

No 26, Special Conference Papers from Bank of Greece

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.

Keywords: Economic recessions; Financial system; ECB policies; Bank behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E44 E58 G21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36
Date: 2013-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-cba, nep-mac and nep-mon
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Monetary Policy and Banks in the Euro Area: The Tale of Two Crises (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bog:spaper:26

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