Sectoral Sales of Government Securities During the ECB's Asset Purchase Programme

Abstract

The transmission channels of quantitative easing programmes partly depend on which sectors sell the securities that the central bank purchases. This note examines the behaviour of the main euro area sectors in response to the public sector leg of the ECB’s extended asset purchase (APP) programme. For each sector we compare realised net flows of government securities to those that would have occurred in the absence of the programme. We find that most sales are attributable to sectors other than euro area banks, with non-euro area residents standing out as the most responsive sector. We discuss the implications of this finding for the transmission of the QE policy in the euro area.

Keywords: unconventional monetary policy, quantitative easing, portfolio balance channel

JEL Classification: E52, E58