Monetary economics

As interest rates surge: flighty deposits and lending

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Friday, April 5, 2024

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ECB Consumer Expectations Survey results – February 2024

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Wednesday, April 3, 2024

This box investigates how households have responded to the 2021-23 inflationary episode using evidence from the ECB’s Consumer Expectations Survey.

Key Points:

This box investigates how households have responded to the 2021-23 inflationary episode using evidence from the ECB’s Consumer Expectations Survey.
The findings suggest that households have primarily adjusted their consumption spending to cope with higher inflation.

Speculation in oil and gas prices in times of geopolitical risks

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Wednesday, April 3, 2024

Overall, speculation has only a limited role in both oil and gas price dynamics, although the degree of speculation is somewhat higher in European gas markets than in US gas markets.

Key Points:

Overall, speculation has only a limited role in both oil and gas price dynamics, although the degree of speculation is somewhat higher in European gas markets than in US gas markets.
Empirical estimates also suggest that the role of speculation in amplifying the transmission of fundamental shocks to oil prices is limited, including in times of heightened geopolitical risk.

US monetary policy is more powerful in low economic growth regimes

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Tuesday, April 2, 2024

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The impact of regulatory changes on rating behaviour

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Tuesday, April 2, 2024

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Abstract

Key Points:

Abstract
We examine rating behaviour after the introduction of new regulations regarding Credit Rating
Agencies (CRAs) in the European securitisation market.
There is empirical evidence of rating catering in the securitisation market in the pre-GFC period (He et al.,
2012; Efing and Hau, 2015).
Competition among
CRAs could diminish ratings quality (Golan, Parlour, and Rajan, 2011) and promotes rating shopping by
issuers resulting in rating inflation (Bolton et al., 2012).
This paper investigates the impact of the post-GFC regulatory changes in the European
securitisation market.
In 2011, in addition to the creation of
European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), a regulatory and supervisory body for CRAs was
introduced.
We examine how rating behaviours have changed in the European securitisation market after the
introduction of these new regulations.
We utilise the existence of multiple ratings and rating agreements between
CRAs to identify the existence of rating shopping and rating catering, respectively (Griffin et al., 2013; He
et al., 2012; 2016).
We find that the regulatory changes have been effective in tackling conflicts of interest between issuers
and CRAs in the structured finance market.
Rating catering, which is a direct consequence of issuer and
CRA collusion, seems to have disappeared after the introduction of these regulations.
There is empirical evidence of rating catering in the securitisation market in
the pre-GFC period (He et al., 2012; Efing and Hau, 2015).
Competition among CRAs could diminish ratings quality (Golan, Parlour,
and Rajan, 2011) and promotes rating shopping by issuers resulting in rating inflation (Bolton et
al., 2012).
This paper investigates the impact of the post-GFC regulatory changes in the European
securitisation market.
In 2011, in addition
to the creation of European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), a regulatory and
supervisory body for CRAs was introduced.
We find that the regulatory changes have been effective in tackling conflicts of interest
between issuers and CRAs in the structured finance market.
Rating catering, which is a direct
consequence of issuer and CRA collusion, seems to have disappeared after the introduction of
these regulations.
Investors who previously demanded higher spreads for rating agreements for a
multiple rated tranche, did not consider the effect of rating harmony as a risk in the post-GFC
period.
Regarding rating shopping, we find that the effectiveness of the changes has been limited,
potentially for two reasons.
Additionally, we also find that rating over-reliance might still be an issue, especially
Rating catering is a broad term and it can involve rating shopping.
They re-examine the rating shopping and rating
catering phenomena in the US market by looking at the post-crisis period between 2009 and 2013.
Using 622 CDO tranches, they also observe the existence of rating shopping and the diminishing
of the rating catering.
Firstly, our main focus is the EU?s CRA Regulation and its effectiveness in reducing
rating inflation and rating over-reliance.
To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to
examine the effectiveness of the EU?s CRA regulatory changes on the investors? perception of
rating inflation in the European ABS market.
Hence, the coverage and quality of our dataset constitutes significant addition
to the literature and allows us to test the rating shopping and rating catering more authoritatively.
The following section reviews the literature
on securitisation concerning CRAs and conflicts of interest, and outlines the regulatory changes
introduced in the post-GFC period.
Firstly, ratings became ever more important as the Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) 5 began heavily relying on CRA assessments for regulatory purposes
(i.e.
the investment mandates that highlight rating agencies as the main benchmark for investment
eligibility) (SEC, 2008; Kisgen and Strahan, 2010; Bolton et al., 2012).
issuers) as one of the main explanations for the rating inflation (He et al., 2011; 2012; Bolton
et al., 2012; Efing and Hau, 2015).
Bolton et al., (2012) demonstrate that competition
promotes rating shopping by issuers, leading to rating inflation.
The last phase, CRA III, was implemented in mid-2013 and involves an additional
set of measures on reducing transparency and rating over-reliance.
As mentioned above, rating inflation can be caused by rating shopping
In order to be eligible to use the STS classification, main parties (i.e.
The higher the difference in the number of ratings for a
given ABS tranche, the greater the risk of rating shopping.
Alternatively, the impact of the new
regulations could be limited when it comes to reducing rating shopping.
This is because, firstly,
the conflict of interest between securitisation parties is not necessarily the sole cause for the
occurrence of rating shopping.
L is a set of variables (Multiple ratings, CRA reported, Rating agreement) that
we utilise interchangeably to capture the rating shopping and rating catering behaviour.
Hence, issuers are incentivised to report the highest possible rating and
ensure each additional rating matches the desired level.
All in all, our results suggest that
the new stricter regulatory measures have been effective in tackling conflicts of interest and
reducing rating inflation caused by rating catering.
Self-selection might be a concern in analysing the impact of the
new measures and investors? response with regard to the rating inflation.
This
result is in line with the earlier findings suggesting that regulatory changes have reduced investors?
suspicion of rating inflation and increased trust of CRAs.
Conclusion
Several regulatory changes were introduced in Europe following the GFC aimed at tackling
conflicts of interest between issuers and CRAs in the ABS market.
Utilising a sample of 12,469
ABS issued between 1998 and 2018 in the European market, this paper examined whether these
changes have had any impact on rating inflations caused by rating shopping and rating catering
phenomena.
We find that the
effectiveness of the changes has been more limited on rating shopping potentially for two reasons.
Tranche Credit Rating is the rating reported for a tranche at launch.

Consumer participation in the credit market during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

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Tuesday, April 2, 2024

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We find that credit demand is highest when

Key Points:

We find that credit demand is highest when
the first lockdown ends and it drops when supportive monetary compensation schemes are implemented.
Credit is more likely to be
accepted under favourable borrowing conditions and after the approval of national recovery plans.
We also find
that demographic, economic factors, perceptions and expectations are associated with the demand for credit and
the credit grant.
First, it adds to a rapidly growing literature on household
borrowing behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic; see, for example, Ho et al.
We provide evidence that credit applications and credit acceptances display a different pattern over
time.
Credit is more likely to be accepted under favourable borrowing conditions and after the
approval of national recovery plans.
In almost all countries
households are significantly less likely to apply and to get their credit approved than in Germany.
In line with literature, we show that
demographic and economic factors affect the probability for credit applications and credit approval.
In addition,
the paper shows that consumer perceptions and expectations matter when they decide to apply for credit.
Introduction
The participation of households in the credit market receives wide attention in the consumer finance literature
because consumer credit enters the monetary policy transmission mechanism through the so-called ?credit
channel?: changes in credit demand and supply have an effect on consumers' spending and investment, which in
turn affect economic growth.
We use microdata from the ECB?s Consumer Expectations Survey (hereinafter CES), a survey that
measures consumer expectations and behaviour in the euro area.
Its panel dimension allows for an assessment of
how consumer behaviour changes over time and how consumers respond to critical economic shocks.
This way we can gauge how credit applications and credit acceptances change under different, almost
opposite, borrowing conditions.
We also distinguish between the demand for long-term secured loans (mortgages) and for short-term
uncollateralized loans (consumer loans).
ECB Working Paper Series No 2922
3

We use probit models to estimate the probability of the consumer to apply for credit and the credit being granted.
The rate peaks in 2020Q3 which reflects the rebound in the demand for loans when the first lockdown ended.
In almost all countries households are significantly less likely
to apply and to get their credit approved than in Germany.
However,
when it comes to credit acceptance, we observe that the two groups of households are more similar.
Finally, we find some heterogeneity with respect to the type of credit, particularly between secured and unsecured
debt.
The demand for
consumer credit is insignificant for liquid households and decreases significantly for constrained households in
the last two quarters of our timespan.
The first consists of a recently growing literature which
explores consumer behaviour in the credit market during the COVID-19 pandemic, mostly in the United States.
Sandler and Ricks (2020) show that consumers did not use credit card debt for financial liquidity in the early stage
of the COVID-19 pandemic.
(2020) report that credit card applications and new mortgage loans
declined during the first months of the pandemic in regions with more unemployment insurance claims.
Lu and
Van der Klaauw (2021) show that there was a sharp drop in consumer credit demand, especially for credit cards.
(2022) document that there was a substantial decrease in the usage of credit cards and home equity lines
of credit by Canadian consumers.
Our paper is also consonant with studies on the association between financial and demographic factors and
consumers? participation in the credit market as well as on the demand for specific types of credit.
January 2020 ? October 2020 - The two main events are the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the
consequential lockdowns in the euro area.
4 If the
respondent has applied for more than one type of credit, she is asked to refer to the most recent credit application.
Between 2021Q3 and 2022Q3 the acceptance
rate stays above the average values, mirroring the easing of credit standards for consumer credit and other lending
to households during this period.
Second, we can investigate the presence of nonlinearities in how liquidity and the credit type interact in explaining credit applications.
(2023) ? who show that in the United States the local pandemic severity had a strong
negative effect on credit card spending early in the pandemic, which diminished over time.
First, we select mortgages and consumer credit as the two mostly reported categories for secured and
13

The full estimation results are reported in Table 3.
The right-hand side panel of Figure 6 shows that the demand for consumer credit is insignificant for both liquid
and illiquid households.
It also shows that
subjective perceptions of credit access, financial concerns and expectations on interest rates matter for the demand
for credit.
In Bertola, G., Disney
R., and Grant, C. (eds) The Economics of Consumer Credit, Cambridge MA, MIT Press.
Horvath, A., Kay, B. and Wix, C. (2023) The COVID-19 shock and consumer credit: Evidence from credit card
data.
Magri, S. (2007) Italian households? debt: The participation to the debt market and the size of the loan.

Isabel Schnabel: From laggard to leader? Closing the euro area’s technology gap

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Saturday, February 17, 2024

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This paper, by means of a DSGE model including heterogeneous firms and banks, financial frictions and prudential regulation, first shows the need of climate-related capital requirements in the existing prudential framework.

Key Points:

This paper, by means of a DSGE model including heterogeneous firms and banks, financial frictions and prudential regulation, first shows the need of climate-related capital requirements in the existing prudential framework.
We further show that relying on microprudential regulation alone would not be enough to account for the systemic dimension of transition risk.

Managing the transition to central bank digital currency

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Wednesday, February 14, 2024

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Key Points:

Piero Cipollone: The euro at 25: what next for Economic and Monetary Union?

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Tuesday, February 13, 2024

We document how gas price fluctuations have a heterogeneous pass-through to euro area prices depending on the underlying shock driving them.

Key Points:

We document how gas price fluctuations have a heterogeneous pass-through to euro area prices depending on the underlying shock driving them.
Supply shocks, moreover, are found to pass through to all components of euro area inflation – producer prices, wages and core inflation, which has implications for monetary policy.

Gas price shocks and euro area inflation

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Tuesday, February 13, 2024

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We document

Key Points:

We document
how gas price fluctuations have a heterogeneous pass-through to euro area prices
depending on the underlying shock driving them.
How do gas price shocks feed through to euro area
inflation, and is the pass-through shock-dependent?
We analyse the importance of gas price shocks
for euro area inflation in two steps.
We identify three structural shocks driving European gas prices,
inspired by the literature on oil but tailored to the European gas market: (i) a gas supply
shock, which reduces the supply of natural gas to the European market, increases the
gas price and lowers gas inventories; (ii) an economic activity shock, which lifts demand
for gas due to higher economic production, and finally (iii) a shock to gas inventories,
when gas prices are driven by precautionary demand by gas companies.
First, all three identified shocks are
important drivers of gas price dynamics, but they differ in how persistently they push
ECB Working Paper Series No 2905

2

up gas prices.
The effect on euro area HICP of a shock to gas supply is more
persistent and somewhat higher than when gas prices are driven by economic activity
shocks.
A final key finding is that the pass-through of gas market shocks to euro area inflation
appears non-linear.
The unprecedented volatility of gas prices
contributed to the inflation problem in the euro area, with the gas price shocks feeding
through producer prices, wages and persistently lifting core inflation.
More expensive
energy contributed substantially to the rise in inflation in Europe during 2022.2
Figure 1: Gas price and euro area Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices.
How do gas price shocks feed through to euro area
inflation, and is the pass-through shock-dependent?
For instance, about 75% of gas imports to the euro area arrives
through pipelines, making gas imports difficult to substitute and gas markets subject to
3
See for example the evidence by Rubaszek and Uddin (2020) for the US economy.
We analyse the importance of gas price shocks for
euro area inflation in two steps.
We identify three structural shocks driving European gas prices,
inspired by the literature on oil but tailored to the European gas market: (i) a gas supply
shock, which reduces the supply of natural gas to the European market, increases the
gas price and lowers gas inventories; (ii) an economic activity shock, which lifts demand
for gas due to higher economic production, and finally (iii) a shock to gas inventories,
when gas prices are driven by precautionary demand by gas companies.
First, all three identified shocks are
important drivers of gas price dynamics, but they differ in how persistently they push
up gas prices.
But when gas prices are driven by
inventory demand shocks, the price effect typically dies out within one quarter.
A final key finding is that the pass-through of gas market shocks to euro area inflation appears non-linear.
The unprecedented volatility of gas prices
contributed to the inflation problem in the euro area, with the gas price shocks feeding
through producer prices, wages and persistently lifting core inflation.
(2022) and Alessandri and Gazzani (2023) identify gas supply shocks using VAR models,
finding that gas price shocks lead to persistent increases in headline inflation.14 Ba?bura
et al.
(2023) find positive effects of gas price shocks on core inflation in a BVAR for
the euro area that includes one type of gas shock along a longer list of macroeconomic
shocks.
3.1
Data

For the gas market BVAR model, we use gas quantities, gas prices, gas inventories and
euro area industrial production, as displayed in Figure 2.
(2015) to optimize
ECB Working Paper Series No 2905

13

the posterior distribution.16 The vector Y includes the European gas quantity proxy, gas
inventories, the European gas price benchmark and euro area industrial production.
As demand for gas increases, the gas price also rises
while inventories fall as agents use gas in storage to partially satisfy higher demand.
Shocks to gas
quantities driven by gas supply or inventory shocks tend to revert to pre-shock levels after
around five to seven months, while economic activity shocks lead to a more long-lived
increase in gas demand.19 Dynamics in gas inventories are more similar across shocks.
3.4
Historical events in the European gas market

Before analysing the transmission of the different types of gas shocks to euro area prices,
we show how the model interprets the unprecedented gas price rise in 2022 in terms of
driving factors, and compare it with previous historical episodes of heightened gas price
volatility as a way of validating the model.
Inventory shocks play a
slightly smaller role, accounting for 17% of gas quantity and 23% of gas price fluctuations
while the residual component (i.e.
4
Pass-through of gas price shocks to consumer prices

The pass-through of gas price shocks to inflation is likely to be multi-faceted.
We first consider four outcome variables y: the European gas price, euro area HICP,
core HICP and energy HICP.
Third, depending on the driving factor, gas price increases can pass through to core
inflation in the euro area.
The results underline that gas price shocks can have important implications for inflation in the euro area ? depending on the driving factor of higher gas prices.
Casoli, C., Manera, M., and Valenti, D. ?Energy shocks in the euro area: disentangling
the pass-through from oil and gas prices to inflation?.