Cette thèse se compose de trois articles qui s’insèrent dans une même problématique sur les interrelations entre les secteurs financier et réel en Corée du sud. Notre analyse empirique a vérifié le bon fonctionnement de certains composants du mécanisme de transmission entre les secteurs financier et réel. Tout d'abord, nous avons constaté que le canal du crédit bancaire a fonctionné comme l'un des canaux de transmission de la politique monétaire (Chapitre1). Ensuite, nous avons vérifié empiriquement que la capitalisation des banques est un facteur important dans la transmission des chocs de politique monétaire (Chapitre2). Enfin, notre analyse sur l’interaction entre le prix de l’immobilier et le crédit bancaire a montré qu’il existait une relation à long terme entre les prix de l'immobilier et les prêts bancaires (Chapitre 3). Comme vérifié empiriquement dans notre analyse, le secteur financier et le secteur réel sont étroitement liés par le choc financier ou réel. Les résultats mettent en valeur les points suivants vis-à-vis des politiques monétaires et de supervision. Premièrement, il est important que la politique monétaire prenne en compte la régulation du capital et son effet sur l’économie. Deuxièmement, en prenant en compte le fait que le prêt hypothécaire est très étroitement lié à la conjoncture économique en Corée, l’instrument de la politique macroprudentielle pour réduire la procyclicité est nécessaire. La banque centrale et l’autorité prudentielle peuvent collaborer à développer ces instruments. / This thesis consists of three Articles that fit into the same issue on the interrelationships between the financial and real sectors in South Korea. Our empirical analysis has verified the correct functioning of certain components of the transmission mechanism between the financial and real sectors. Firstly, we found that the bank lending channel has functioned as one of the transmission channels of monetary policy (Chapter 1). Then, we verified empirically that the capitalization of banks is an important factor in the transmission of monetary policy shocks (Chapter 2). Finally, our analysis of the interaction between property prices and bank lending has shown that there is a long-term relationship between property prices and bank lending (Chapter 3). As empirically verified in our analysis, the financial sector and the real sector are closely linked through shocks, either financial or real. The results highlight the following points vis-à-vis the monetary policy and macroprudential policy. First, it is important that monetary policy takes into account the capital regulation and its effect on the economy. Second, taking into account the fact that the mortgage is very closely linked to the economic situation in Korea, macroprudential policy instruments is required to reduce procyclicality. The central bank and the supervisory authority can collaborate to develop these instruments.

Made available in DSpace on 2008-05-13T13:15:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 1417.pdf: 79747 bytes, checksum: d7ef21a3489fe76ed1ff668e7579137b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2002-05-27 / The aim of this thesis is to investigate the existence and relevance of the bank-lending channel in Brazil. For that purpose we use balance-sheet data of Brazilian financial institutions, and adopt a methodology based in Kashyap and Stein (2000), who use twostage and panel estimations. We find that restrictive monetary policy – represented by interest rate increases – lower the sensibility of bank lending to the liquidity of its assets. In other words, increases in the interest rate lead to less binding bank liquidity restrictions. Therefore, the existence of a bank-lending channel for the transmission of monetary policy in Brazil is refused. / Esta dissertação investiga a existência e a relevância do canal de empréstimos bancários no Brasil, utilizando dados de balancetes de instituições financeiras. Adotando uma metodologia de estimação em dois estágios e em painel, baseada em Kashyap e Stein (2000), constatamos que, ao contrário do esperado, políticas monetárias restritivas – representadas por aumentos na taxa de juros – diminuem a sensibilidade do crédito bancário em relação à liquidez do seu ativo. Em outras palavras, choques positivos na taxa de juros relaxam as restrições de liquidez das instituições financeiras. Desta forma, é refutada a existência de um canal de empréstimos bancários no Brasil nos moldes propostos pela literatura americana.

Submitted by ANDRE BARBOSA COSTA (andre.costa@gvmail.br) on 2014-02-26T23:47:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Andre_BC_Transmissao assimetrica de um choque de liquidez.pdf: 1259504 bytes, checksum: 375f9b57703873d30be47f24f90832c3 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzinei Teles Garcia Garcia (suzinei.garcia@fgv.br) on 2014-02-27T11:51:09Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Andre_BC_Transmissao assimetrica de um choque de liquidez.pdf: 1259504 bytes, checksum: 375f9b57703873d30be47f24f90832c3 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-02-27T12:32:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Andre_BC_Transmissao assimetrica de um choque de liquidez.pdf: 1259504 bytes, checksum: 375f9b57703873d30be47f24f90832c3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-13 / Esta dissertação estuda o impacto do choque de liquidez no sistema financeiro nacional (SFN) sobre o crédito às empresas após a quebra do Lehman Brothers, em setembro/2008. O choque ocorreu de forma diferenciada aos players do mercado nacional, de modo que algumas instituições financeiras passaram por forte restrição de recursos, ao passo que outras receberam um volume acentuado de depósitos. Para expurgar possíveis efeitos de demanda por crédito, utiliza-se a abordagem de efeitos fixos por atividade econômica, de modo que os coeficientes estimados reflitam a oferta de crédito dos bancos. Os resultados obtidos corroboram, em diferentes graus, as hipóteses delineadas, com destaque para dois pontos: (i) a elasticidade do crédito empresarial aos depósitos é diferente entre os grupos de bancos que têm aumento ou diminuição desta forma de funding, fato consistente com os modelos que preveem que os agentes tendem a manter mais liquidez em um contexto de incerteza sistêmica; (ii) com a escassez de recursos externos e do mercado de capitais nacional após a quebra do Lehman Brothers, as grandes empresas tiveram que recorrer ao segmento bancário, e na disputa pelos recursos oriundos desta fonte levaram vantagem comparativa em relação às pequenas e médias empresas.

Abstract China’s outstanding growth performance of recent years, the ongoing liberalisation of its capital market, and its deepening integration into the world economy provide ample motivation for a deeper understanding of the country’s economic policy-making. This dissertation is an attempt to better understand monetary policy operations and transmission in this rapidly evolving situation. Monetary policy in China is unique compared to any other country in terms of both the available policy instruments and the policy environment. The policy regime is transitioning to a more market-orientated one, and presently the central bank uses a mixture of quantity-based and price-based instruments. These special features are addressed in this dissertation. The dissertation is comprised of four independent but related essays that empirically evaluate monetary policy implementation and the policy environment in China. The first essay examines the relevance of a quantity-based McCallum-type policy rule in achieving price stability. The findings are that deviations in money supply from the rule help to forecast price developments and thus underline the relation between money supply and prices in China. The second essay considers a wider selection of possible policy rules and examines the monetary policy implementation and instruments used by the central bank. Money supply and interest rate instruments are found to react differently to price and output developments. The interest rate instrument is gaining weight over time, which highlights China’s transition to a more market-based policy setting. The third essay utilises bank-level data to study monetary policy transmission and the existence of the bank lending channel in China. Changes in the reserve requirement ratio are found to affect bank lending in China in a similar manner as changes in interest rates. Different types of banks (by ownership) react differently to these changes, but no robust evidence of a bank lending channel is found. The fourth essay compares the economic dynamics in a DSGE modelling framework under the assumption that China can successfully rebalance its economy and achieve a lower savings rate and higher level of domestic consumption. The rebalancing does not notably affect the transmission of monetary policy shocks, but it does render the economy more resilient to technology shocks. / Tiivistelmä Kiinan nopea talouskasvu, pääomamarkkinoiden avaaminen ja maan tiiviimpi kytkeytyminen maailmantalouteen ovat johtaneet siihen, että Kiinan talouspolitiikan ymmärtäminen on aiempaa tärkeämpää. Tämän väitöskirjan tavoitteena on perehtyä Kiinan rahapolitiikkatoimiin ja politiikan välittymiseen nopeasti muuttuvassa ympäristössä. Rahapolitiikka Kiinassa eroaa muiden maiden rahapolitiikasta niin käytössä olevien instrumenttien kuin politiikkaympäristönkin kannalta. Kiina on siirtymävaiheessa kohti markkinaperusteisempaa rahapolitiikkaa, ja tällä hetkellä maan keskuspankki käyttää sekä hinta- että määräperusteisia instrumentteja. Näitä erityispiirteitä tarkastellaan tähän väitöskirjaan sisältyvissä tutkimuksissa. Väitöskirja koostuu neljästä yksittäisestä mutta toisiinsa liittyvästä esseestä, joissa tarkastellaan empiirisesti rahapolitiikan toteutusta sekä politiikkaympäristöä Kiinassa. Ensimmäisessä esseessä käsitellään määräperusteisen McCallum-rahapolitiikkasäännön käyttökelpoisuutta hintavakaustavoitteen saavuttamisessa. Havaitut poikkeamat säännön suosittelemasta rahamäärän kasvusta parantavat inflaatioennusteita, mikä korostaa rahan tarjonnan ja hintakehityksen välistä suhdetta. Toisessa esseessä hyödynnetään useampia mahdollisia rahapolitiikkasääntöjä ja tarkastellaan rahapolitiikan toteutusta ja keskuspankin käyttämiä politiikkainstrumentteja. Rahan tarjonnan ja korkoinstrumentin havaitaan reagoivan eri tavoin hintakehitykseen ja tuotannon kasvuun. Korkoinstrumentin painoarvo kasvaa ajan kuluessa, mikä osoittaa Kiinan olevan siirtymässä kohti markkinaperusteisempaa politiikkaa. Kolmannessa esseessä hyödynnetään pankkikohtaista aineistoa ja tarkastellaan rahapolitiikan välittymistä ja pankkilainakanavan olemassaoloa. Keskuspankin varantovaatimusmuutosten havaitaan vaikuttavan pankkien lainanantoon samalla tavoin korkomuutosten kanssa. Omistustyypin mukaan jaoteltuna erilaiset pankit reagoivat eri tavoin rahapolitiikan muutoksiin. Tutkimuksessa ei kuitenkaan löydy vankkaa tukea pankkilainakanavan olemassaololle. Neljännessä esseessä tarkastellaan talouden dynamiikkaa DSGE-mallikehikossa olettaen, että Kiina onnistuu tasapainottamaan talouttaan niin, että säästämisaste laskee ja kotimaisen kulutuksen osuus taloudessa kasvaa. Tasapainottaminen ei merkittävästi vaikuta rahapolitiikkasokkien välittymiseen, mutta tekee taloudesta vähemmän herkän teknologiasokeille.

<p>Vid tidpunkten för disputationen var följande delarbete opublicerat: delarbete 3 accepterat.</p><p>At the time of the doctoral defence the following paper was unpublished: paper 3 accepted.</p>

到目前為止，國內外對信用分配的實證研究，大抵不脫以總體資料(aggregate datas)說明在貨幣政策的傳導機制中「信用管道」(credit channel)的存在，但要以此解釋信用分配的現象則略顯不足，我們需要的是更直接的證據：那就是在信用管道背後，銀行用來壓抑地雷公司借款的「篩選工具」(Screening Devices)！ 本文便以分析整理個別公司借款資料的方式進行實證研究，首度將樣本區分為「地雷公司」與「正常公司」，以及「金融風暴前、後」的不同時期，並以「臨界放款利率」作為判斷標準。 本文得到以下三點結論： 1. 在三種樣本期間，地雷公司與正常公司所面對的放款供給曲線，幾乎都有後彎現象（除正常公司在金融風暴前例外），表示信用分配現象的確存在，且銀行以利率為信用篩選工具。 2. 在全部樣本期間與金融風暴後，地雷公司所面對的臨界放款利率均較正常公司為低，表示銀行對地雷公司與正常公司的臨界放款利率的確有異，且銀行成功以「數量」壓抑地雷公司借款。 3. 地雷公司與正常公司在金融風暴後，臨界放款利率均有所降低，且地雷公司臨界放款利率降幅（與全部樣本期間相較）較正常公司高出11個百分點，表示「金融風暴」的確會影響銀行授信態度，且對地雷公司影響較大。 實證結果與研究假說一致，並符合我們的直覺。

Submitted by Sarah Amorim Torres (sarahadm@hotmail.com) on 2016-03-10T10:01:48Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_ Sarah Amorim Torres - EAESP - 2016.pdf: 515544 bytes, checksum: ad52194d57d6599a00dc7cbd652e2fdc (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Pamela Beltran Tonsa (pamela.tonsa@fgv.br) on 2016-03-10T16:13:37Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_ Sarah Amorim Torres - EAESP - 2016.pdf: 515544 bytes, checksum: ad52194d57d6599a00dc7cbd652e2fdc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-10T16:30:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_ Sarah Amorim Torres - EAESP - 2016.pdf: 515544 bytes, checksum: ad52194d57d6599a00dc7cbd652e2fdc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-29 / This study investigates the existence of competition between retail government-owned and private banks in the event of federal government interventions imposed on the Brazilian bank lending market, such as the expansion of bank credit through the hike of public banks’ lending supply and the campaign aiming to reduce the banks’ spread levels led by state-owned banks. The Diff-in-Diff model predicts that public banks show higher loan growth, non-performing loans, lending returns, operational returns and cost of funding compared to private peers after the treatment. In addition, it finds evidence of differences in the asset allocation decisions of banks, as private banks preferred an asset portfolio with a higher proportion of liquid assets holdings and less loans compared to public banks after the treatment. These findings suggest that government-owned retail banks do not compete with private peers when their objective function is not only to maximize profits given risk. / O presente estudo investiga se há competição entre os bancos públicos e privados varejistas na presença de intervenções governamentais impostas ao mercado de crédito bancário brasileiro, tais como o aumento da oferta de crédito via bancos públicos e a campanha de redução dos spreads bancários capitaneada pelos bancos governamentais. Os resultados encontrados no modelo Diff-in-Diff indicam que os bancos públicos apresentam ritmo de crescimento do estoque de crédito, nível de aprovisionamento, rentabilidade da carteira de crédito, retorno operacional, bem como custo do funding superiores aos bancos privados após o tratamento. Ademais, há evidências de mudanças na estratégia de alocação de recursos dos bancos privados em relação aos pares públicos, tendo as instituições bancárias privadas preferido aumentar a participação de ativos líquidos no balanço em detrimento de operações de crédito após o tratamento. Esses resultados sugerem que os bancos privados não competem com os bancos públicos no segmento de varejo quando estes adotam estratégias de alocação de recursos difusas à maximização do lucro esperado para um dado risco.

Après Septembre 2008, du fait du gel du marché interbancaire, d’un manque de liquidité, d’une perte de confiance et des difficultés des institutions financières, la transmission de la politique monétaire au sein de la zone euro a été sévèrement altérée. La Banque Centrale Européenne (BCE) a donc dû avoir recours à des politiques monétaires non-conventionnelles. En considérant, au sein de la zone euro, les contraintes imposées à la banque centrale et la fragmentation des marchés financiers, l’objectif de cette thèse empirique est d’évaluer les canaux de transmission des politiques monétaires conventionnelles et non-conventionnelles de la BCE. Les comportements de prêts des banques étant liés à leurs coûts de financement, le premier essai se focalise sur le canal de transmission des prêts bancaires. Il étudie l’évolution des activités de prêts syndiqués d’institutions financières européennes et leur réaction aux politiques de la BCE. La communication de la banque centrale revêt une importance toute particulière dans une union monétaire. Les deuxième et troisième essais se concentrent sur le canal des signaux. Le deuxième essai étudie sur la communication durant les conférences de presse mensuelles ainsi que ses effets sur la prévisibilité des décisions de politique monétaire et sur les rendements et la volatilité des marchés financiers. Le dernier essai se focalise sur l’utilisation du guidage des taux d’intérêt futurs, une communication non-conventionnelle informant les marchés du niveau futur des taux d’intérêt de court-terme. Il étudie l’efficacité de cette annonce et sa capacité à influencer les prévisions de taux d’intérêt faites par les acteurs de marché. / After September 2008, due to a frozen interbank market, shortage of liquidity, loss of confidence, and collapsing financial institutions, the monetary policy transmission in the euro area was severely impaired. Under thus exceptional circumstances, the European Central Bank (ECB) had to turn to non-standard monetary policy measures. Considering, in the euro area, the constrained range of actions and fragmented financial markets, the objective of this empirical thesis is to assess the transmission channels of ECB standard and non-standard monetary policies and their effects on both financial markets and the economy.As banks’ lending behaviors are related to their financing costs, the first essay focuses on bank lending channel. It studies the evolution of lending activities of European financial institutions on the syndicated loan market and its reaction to the ECB standard and non-standard policies. The communication of the central bank is of utmost importance in a monetary union with heterogeneous, in terms of economic situations and cultures, countries. The second and third essays study the signaling channel of monetary policy. The second essay focuses on the communication during monthly press conferences and their effects on the predictability of monetary policy decisions and on financial markets returns and volatility. The last essay concentrates exclusively on the use of \textit{forward guidance} on interest rate, a non-standard central bank communication providing information on future short-term interest rates. It discusses its effectiveness and ability to lower market participants expected interest rates.

Diese Dissertation besteht aus drei Essays, welche den monetären Transmissionsmechanismus via das Kreditangebot von Banken in einem Umfeld mit Überschussreserven analysieren. Im ersten Aufsatz wird die Effekten der 2008 Handlungsrahmens Änderungen der Fed auf den Transmissionsmechanismus untersucht. Ich schätze die Reaktionen in der Periode vor 2008 und zeige, dass den Bankkreditkanal aktiv ist. In der Periode nach 2008 steigen Bankkredite nach eine Geldpolitikkontraktion. Ich habe ein Regimewechsel-TANK Modell entwickelt, um den Transmissionsmechanismus über beide Systeme zu vergleichen. Das Modell zeigt, dass nach einem kontraktiven Schock unter dem alten System die Produktion sinkt, und, dass unter einem neuartigen System das Kreditangebot stimuliert. Dies ist aufgrund einer Friktion der Fall, die durch die Liquiditätsmanagementkosten der Banken verursacht wird. Im zweiten Aufsatz analysiere ich ob der Bankkreditkanal in den USA nach der Finanzkrise vorhanden ist. Dieser Kanal stützt sich auf die Annahme verbindlicher Reserveanforderungen. Ich finde Belege für den Kreditvergabekanal vor der Finanzkrise. Seit der Krise ist der Bankkreditkanal nicht mehr vorhanden. Stattdessen ist eine kontraktive Geldpolitik jetzt mit lockereren Liquiditätsbeschränkungen verbunden, und somit mit einem Anstieg der Bankkredite. Im dritten Aufsatz, D. Zander und ich identifizieren heterogene Bankenreaktionen auf geldpolitische Schocks in den USA. Unter Verwendung von einem informationsrobusten Instrument, zeigen wir, dass der Grad der Bargeld-Liquidität systematisch beeinflusst, wie Banken infolge eines geldpolitischen Schocks ihr Kreditvergabeverhalten ändern. Wir finden, dass nach einem kontraktiven Schock hochliquide Banken mit einer Ausweitung der Kreditvergabe reagieren, während weniger liquide Banken eine gedämpfte Antwort zeigen. Wir zeigen, dass das Vernachlässigen von Informationseffekten zu qualitativ unterschiedlichen Ergebnissen für liquide Banken führt. / This dissertation consists of three essays that analyze the monetary transmission mechanism via banks’ credit supply to the real economy under an environment of excess reserves. The first essay, examines the effects of the Fed’s 2008 operational system switch on the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. In the pre-switch sample the bank-lending channel is shown to be active, while in the latter sample, bank loans increase after a monetary contraction. Additionally, a regime-switching TANK model is used to compare the transmission mechanism across both systems. Under the old-style system real activity declines after a monetary contraction, while under a new-style system, monetary tightening stimulates credit supply, due to the presence of a friction introduced by banks’ liquidity management costs. The second essay analyzes whether the bank-lending channel is still present in post financial crisis U.S. data. This channel relies on the key assumption of binding reserve requirements, which is at odds with post-crisis data. Using a two-step regression approach, I find evidence supporting the lending channel in the subsample prior to the crisis. Moreover, since the crisis the lending channel is no longer active. Instead, monetary tightening is associated with looser liquidity constraints, and thus, with bank lending growth. The third essay is joint work with D. Zander. We identify heterogeneous bank reactions to monetary policy shocks in the U.S. using macro-econometric techniques and micro-level data. Using an informationally-robust instrument we show that the degree of cash-liquidity systematically influences banks’ lending behavior. Concretely, after a contractionary shock, liquid banks (those with excess reserves above 1% of assets) react by expanding lending, whereas less liquid banks have a muted response. We show that neglecting to control for the information effects of monetary policy, yield qualitatively different results that are at odds with economic theory.

This dissertation collects four essays on banks, firms and real effects of bank lending. Owing to the appliance of different econometric methods on several datasets, insights in the behav-ior of and the impacts from financial markets and market participants are generated. In the first chapter, our results uncover a so far undocumented ability of the interbank market to distinguish between banks of different quality in times of aggregate distress. We show empirical evidence that during the 2007 financial crisis the inability of some banks to roll over their interbank debt was not due to a failure of the interbank market per se but rather to bank-specific shocks affecting banks’ capital, liquidity and credit quality as well as revised bank-level risk perceptions. Relationship banking is not capable of containing these frictions, as hard information seems to dominate soft information. In detail, we explore determinants of the formation and resilience of interbank lending relationships by analyzing an extensive da-taset comprising over 1.9 million interbank relationships of more than 3,500 German banks between 2000 and 2012. The second chapter examines the relationship between central bank funding and credit risk-taking. Employing bank-firm-level data from the German credit registry during 2009:Q1-2014:Q4, we find that banks borrowing from the central bank rebalance their portfolios to-wards ex-ante riskier firms. We further establish that this effect is driven by the ECB’s maturi-ty extensions and that the risk-taking sensitivity of banks borrowing from the ECB is inde-pendent of idiosyncratic bank characteristics. Finally, we show that these shifts in bank lend-ing are associated with an increase in firm-level investment and employment, but also with a deterioration of bank balance sheet quality in the following year. Once we analyze the relationship of banks as lenders vis-à-vis banks as borrowers and banks as lenders vis-à-vis non-financial companies as borrowers, we enlarge the understand-ing of non-financial companies not only in terms of being simply borrowers, respectively sub-jects exhibiting of credit risks. Instead, we try to understand the inner working of those com-panies more generally and analyze their quality not only in terms of a bank’s risk assessment but also in terms of the overall market assessment. However, this in turn can generate infor-mation useable to assess the quality of a bank’s credit portfolio in dimensions that so far are not taken into account by the current regulatory framework. Moreover, a better understanding of banks and non-banks beyond the standard lens of the banking and corporate finance litera-ture might promote new scopes for future research connecting those discrete subjects. In this regard, the third chapter analyzes the dependence of price reactions to corporate insider trad-ing on several measures of corporate governance quality. Our results strongly support the view that first, higher corporate governance levels seem to prevent or discourage insiders from engaging in insider trading as means of opportunistic rent extraction. Second, results confirm the notion of buy and sell trades not being just two sides of the same coin. That is, a higher level of corporate governance leads to a better pre-event information environment which results in less positive abnormal returns after insider buy trades as the incremental posi-tive information revealed by the trade is smaller. In contrast, sell trades in firms with better corporate governance are perceived to convey more valuable and most importantly negative information to the capital market so that prices adjust more for companies with better govern-ance schemes. Third, we show that institutional ownership even on an aggregate level is a sufficient measure to proxy a company’s corporate governance level. Hence, as information on companies’ bylaws and on investors’ investment dedication and type for example are scarce, respectively associated with higher costs because one has to gather that information one can refrain from that and instead proxy the governance level with the aggregate measure of institutional ownership. The latter result is important for carrying out future analyses merg-ing and extending the findings of the first two chapters. Last, the fourth chapter abstracts from borrowers as subjects of credit risk, as well, and most importantly extends the analysis of banks, firms and their interactions effecting each other by a macroeconomic perspective of the real effects of bank lending. That is, as capital flows and real estate are pro-cyclical, and real estate has a substantial weight in economies’ income and wealth Chapter 4 studies the role of real estate markets in the transmission of bank flow shocks to output growth across German cities. In this regard, real sector firms play a central role in the transmission mechanism we uncover. More specifically, the empirical analysis relies on a new and unique matched data set at the city level and the bank-firm level. To measure bank flow shocks, we show that changes in sovereign spreads of Southern Eu-ropean countries (the so-called PIGS spread) can predict German cross-border bank flows. To achieve identification by geographic variation, in addition to a traditional supply-side varia-ble, we use a novel instrument that exploits a policy assigning refugee immigrants to munici-palities on an exogenous basis. We find that output growth responds more to bank flow shocks in cities that are more exposed to tightness in local real estate markets. We estimate that, during the 2009-2014 period, for every 100-basis point increase in the PIGS spread, the most exposed cities grow 15-2 basis points more than the least exposed ones. Moreover, the differential response of commercial property prices can explain most of this growth differen-tial. When we unpack the transmission mechanism by using matched bank-firm-level data on credit, employment, capital expenditure and TFP, we find that firm real estate collateral as measured by tangible fixed assets plays a critical role. In particular, bank flow shocks in-crease the credit supply to firms and sectors with more real estate collateral. Higher credit supply then leads firms to hire and invest more, without evidence of capital misallocation.