Bank Lending Policies and Monetary Policy: Some Lessons From the Negative Interest Era

Abstract

What is the long-term impact of negative interest rates on bank lending? To answer this question, we construct a unique summary measure of negative rate exposure by individual banks based on exclusive survey data and banks’ balance sheets and couple it with the credit register of Spain and firms’ balance sheets to identify this impact on the supply of credit to firms. We find that only when deposit rates reached the zero lower bound (ZLB) did affected banks (relative to non-affected banks) decrease their supply, especially when undercapitalized and lending to risky firms. The adverse effects of the negative rates on banks’ intermediation capacity only took place after a protracted period of time.

Keywords: negative interest rates, negative for long, zero lower bound, lending policies, bank capital ratio, risk taking

JEL Classification: G21, E52, E58