Quantitative Easing, Investment, and Safe Assets: The Corporate-Bond Lending Channel

Erasmo Giambona (), Rafael Matta, Jose-Luis Peydro and Ye Wang

No 1179, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: We show that Quantitative Easing (QE) stimulates investment via a corporate-bond lending channel. Fed's large-scale asset purchases of MBS and treasuries through QE creates a vacuum of safe assets, prompting safer firms to invest more by issuing relatively "safe" bonds. Using micro-data around QE, we find that QE increases firm-level investment by 7.4 percentage points for firms with bond market access. This growth is financed with senior bonds. We find no evidence of higher shareholders' payouts associated to QE. The robust findings are consistent with a model in which reducing the supply of government debt lowers "safe" corporate bond yields, stimulating investment.

Keywords: quantitative easing (QE); corporate-bond lending channel; investment; safe assets; financing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E5 G01 G31 G32 G38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Quantitative easing, investment, and safe assets: the corporate-bond lending channel (2020)
Working Paper: Quantitative Easing, Investment, and Safe Assets: The Corporate-Bond Lending Channel (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bge:wpaper:1179

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