Unintended consequences of QE: Real estate prices and financial stability

Tobias Berg, Rainer Haselmann, Thomas Kick and Sebastian Schreiber

No 196, IMFS Working Paper Series from Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS)

Abstract: We investigate how unconventional monetary policy, via central banks' purchases of corporate bonds, unfolds in credit-saturated markets. While this policy results in a loosening of credit market conditions as intended by policymakers, we report two unintended side effects. First, the policy impacts the allocation of credit among industries. Affected banks reallocate loans from investment-grade firms active on bond markets almost entirely to real estate asset managers. Other industries do not obtain more loans, particularly real estate developers and construction firms. We document an increase in real estate prices due to this policy, which fuels real estate overvaluation. Second, more loan write-offs arise from lending to these firms, and banks are not compensated for this risk by higher interest rates. We document a drop in bank profitability and, at the same time, a higher reliance on real estate collateral. Our findings suggest that central banks' quantitative easing has substantial adverse effects in credit-saturated economies.

Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-fdg, nep-mon and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/281063/1/1877968587.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:imfswp:281063

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMFS Working Paper Series from Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().