International Spillovers of Monetary Policy: Evidence from France and Italy
32 Pages Posted: 14 Aug 2018
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International Spillovers of Monetary Policy: Evidence from France and Italy
International Spillovers of Monetary Policy: Evidence from France and Italy
Date Written: August 2018
Abstract
In this paper we provide empirical evidence on the impact of US and UK monetary policy changes on credit supply of banks operating in Italy and France over the period 2000-2015, exploring the existence of an international bank lending channel. Exploiting bank balance sheet heterogeneity, we find that monetary policy tightening abroad leads to a reduction of credit supply at home, in particular for US monetary policy changes. Our results show that USD funding plays an important role in the transmission mechanism, especially for French banks which rely to a larger extent on USD funding. We also show that banks adjust their euro and foreign currency lending differently, thus implying that funding sources in different currencies are not perfect substitutes. This is especially the case when tensions in currency swap markets are high, thus resulting in costly cross-currency funding.
Keywords: Spillovers, Monetary Policy, International Banking
JEL Classification: E52 ; F42 ; G21
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation