The Post-2015 German Lending Surge: What Role for QE?

Eiblmeier, Sebastian (2025): The Post-2015 German Lending Surge: What Role for QE?

Abstract

This paper uses German microdata to test whether the ECB’s quantitative easing (QE) spurred bank lending to non-financial firms. Bank-firm loan data allow me to control for loan demand at firm level. The share of bonds in banks’ total assets before QE serves as treatment proxy. While the effects are positive and statistically significant, they are small: Increasing the bond/asset share in a firm’s lender bank by one standard deviation increases the de-trended outstanding bilateral loan volume by 3-5% of its within-sample mean. At firm level, no unambiguous effect can be observed.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Unconventional monetary policy, Germany, bank lending, portfolio rebalancing, panel regression.
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C2 - Single Equation Models ; Single Variables > C23 - Panel Data Models ; Spatio-temporal Models; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E5 - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit > E51 - Money Supply ; Credit ; Money Multipliers; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E5 - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit > E52 - Monetary Policy; G - Financial Economics > G1 - General Financial Markets > G11 - Portfolio Choice ; Investment Decisions; G - Financial Economics > G2 - Financial Institutions and Services > G21 - Banks ; Depository Institutions ; Micro Finance Institutions ; Mortgages

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