We analyse the effects of quantitative easing (QE) on Swedish bank profitability on the four largest banks in Sweden between 2015-2021 by utilizing daily stock prices as a proxy for bank profit. Using an event study approach, we find that QE has a significant positive effect on bank profitability in Sweden as wholesale funding conditions improve. This suggests that structural differences in bank funding have an impact on the effect of QE. Furthermore, we investigate the individual effects of QE on bank profitability. We determine that QE benefits banks with higher credit losses on their balance sheet due to improvements in debt serviceability. Finally, we complement our study by investigating how QE affects debtholders of the banks through credit default swaps (CDS). We find that QE reduces prices on CDS, therefore signalling an improvement in wholesale funding conditions. This indicates that both equity and debtholders perceive the effects of QE positively.

Climate change is a major concern impacting every aspect of life including economics. Therefore, it seems interesting to discuss the role of monetary policy in global warming mitigation. Previous papers hint that monetary policy, especially the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing, may have a bad impact on the environment. Here we will check this statement using two simple linear regressions to see if quantitative easing has an impact on carbon emissions and firm’s willingness to pollute, in the Eurozone. We find that quantitative ease has no or very small effect on these environmental features. Finally, we will give an overview of the discussion around how quantitative easing and central banks’ actions can actively reduce climate change.

It is widely accepted that banks are one of the most significant financial intermediaries in any economy, facilitating the flow of capital between savers and borrowers. While this may be the case in many advanced economies, including the US, little research has been done on how the quantitative easing (QE) program of central banks affects bank performance. This paper examines the impact of the Federal Reserve’s (the Fed’s) quantitative easing (QE) policies and announcements on bank stocks in the United States (US) during the Covid period. While we do not dismiss the role of investor sentiment, we discover that QE interventions improved bank stock returns albeit with a lag in the case of balance sheet expansion. Furthermore, the impact varied with a greater response from banks with stronger balance sheets. Banks with weaker balance sheets were more sensitive to QE interventions as well. These findings have practical implications for policymakers, regulators, banks and market participants to make informed decisions during crises

Quantitative Easing is an unconventional instrument when conducting monetary policy with the aim of stimulating the economy. The instrument is a complementary tool when changing the nominal interest rate is no longer effective. In the United States this unconventional instrument has been used through three different waves between December 2008 to October 2014. This research paper investigates two different regressions, one for the dependent variable consumption and one for the dependent variable investments to capture the effects on households and firms respectively. The results are used to study whether the unconventional monetary policy has had any effects on these variables and if the dependent variables are affected to different degrees. Data for this paper is collected between the first quarter of 2005 until the fourth quarter of 2019. The modelling used is the Auto Regressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) for the two different regressions. All variables in the regressions are critically tested for unit roots, autocorrelation, heteroscedasticity and misspecification to validate the analysis. The findings of our ARDL models indicate that investments are affected by quantitative easing to a larger degree than consumption by 3.8 times the change of the coefficients at its optimal lags.

Equity Risk Premium (ERP) is the cornerstone in Financial Economics. It is a basic requirement in stock valuation, evaluation of portfolio performance and asset allocation. For the last decades, several studies have attempted to investigate the relationship between macroeconomic drivers of ERP. In this work, I empirically investigate the macroeconomic determinants of UK ERP. For this I parsimoniously cover a large body of literature stemming from ERP puzzle. I motivate the empirical investigation based on three mutually exclusive theoretical lenses. The thesis is organised in the journal paper format. In the first paper I review the literature on ERP over the past twenty-eight years. In particular, the aim of the paper is three fold. First, to review the methods and techniques, proposed by the literature to estimate ERP. Second, to review the literature that attempts to resolve the ERP puzzle, first coined by Mehra and Prescott (1985), by exploring five different types of modifications to the standard utility framework. And third, to review the literature that investigates and develops relationship between ERP and various macroeconomic and market factors in domestic and international context. I find that ERP puzzle is still a puzzle, within the universe of standard power utility framework and Consumption Capital Asset Pricing Model, a conclusion which is in line with Kocherlakota (1996) and Mehra (2003). In the second paper, I investigate the impact of structural monetary policy shocks on ex-post ERP. More specifically, the aim of this paper is to investigate the whether the response of UK ERP is different to the structural monetary policy shocks, before and after the implementation of Quantitative Easing in the UK. I find that monetary policy shocks negatively affect the ERP at aggregate level. However, at the sectoral level, the magnitude of the response is heterogeneous. Further, monetary policy shocks have a significant negative (positive) impact on the ERP before (after) the implementation of Quantitative Easing (QE). The empirical evidence provided in the paper sheds light on the equity market’s asymmetric response to the Bank of England’s monetary policy before and after the monetary stimulus. In the third paper I examine the impact of aggregate and disaggregate consumption shocks on the ex-post ERP of various FTSE indices and the 25 Fama-French style value-weighted portfolios, constructed on the basis of size and book-to-market characteristics. I extract consumption shocks using Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) and investigate its time-series and cross-sectional implications for ERP in the UK. These structural consumption shocks represent deviation of agent’s actual consumption path from its theoretically expected path. Aggregate consumption shocks seem to explain significant time variation in the ERP. At disaggregated level, when the actual consumption is less than expected, the ERP rises. Durable and Semi-durable consumption shocks have a greater impact on the ERP than non-durable consumption shocks. In the fourth and final paper I investigate the impact of short and long term market implied volatility on the UK ERP. I also examine the pricing implications of innovations to short and long term implied market volatility in the cross-section of stocks returns. I find that both the short and the long term implied volatility have significant negative impact on the aggregate ERP, while at sectoral level the impact is heterogeneous. I find both short and long term volatility is priced negatively indicating that (i) investors care both short and long term market implied volatility (ii) investors are ready to pay for insurance against these risks.

Inflation target was introduced in 2013 in Japan. The goal was to maintain price stability and sustainable inflation rate that is conducive to optimal consumption and investment decisions. However, Japanese inflation rate has been consistently below the target rate. We want to examine why the failure happens in such a big economy. This thesis focuses on inflation expectation as the main factor that leads to unanchored inflation. Inflation expectation can be distinguished into adaptive and rational expectation. To analyse inflation expectation, we regress inflation on four relevant variables: forecasted inflation, lagged inflation, economic slack and import inflation. Our goal is to identify the significance of forecasted inflation and lagged inflation, which are the main variables, to determine the characteristics of the two types of inflation expectation. This time-series analysis is on a monthly basis covering the period between 2013 and 2018. The results show that agents are near-rational rather than rational, meaning that they tend to overweigh the costs of inflation. Also, it is shown that they have minor but significant backward-looking tendency and believe that past inflation determines the current inflation. Hence, inflation expectation could give some useful insights into unanchored inflation.

Orientador: Eduardo Strachamn / Banca: Enéas Gonçalves de Carvalho / Banca: Ernani Torres Teixeira Filho / Resumo: O presente trabalho tem como objetivo analisar a experiência do Japão após os colapsos das bolhas especulativas dos ativos na década de 1990. Aceitando que o pior já passou, ou seja, que a crise financeira japonesa foi finalmente resolvida, uma coisa é certa; não antes de uma "década perdida" caracterizada por um longo período, de baixo crescimento, aumento das taxas de desemprego, deflação nos preços dos ativos, falências bancárias e persistência dos no-performing loans. Nesse contexto, as principais respostas obtidas por este trabalho foram: a crença que a recuperação econômica viria com o passar do tempo e a falta de entendimento sobre o tamanho do problema que a morosidade de atuação levaria ao sistema, explica em certo ponto a tolerância inicial do governo japonês frente à crise econômica. A política fiscal expansionista foi eficaz, mas, não utilizada de forma consistente, a natureza "stop-start" dos estímulos realizados, e em particular as prematuras reversões fiscais diminuíram a sua eficácia, outros fatores prováveis para a baixa eficácia durante os anos 90 foram: os estímulos fiscais podem ter sido prejudicados pela queda dos multiplicadores fiscais; os efetivos investimentos públicos foram menores que os anunciados e ao invés de se dar ênfase a obras públicas, priorizou-se cortes em impostos. De outra forma, um caminho fundamental de maximizar os estímulos fiscais é através da restauração do crédito do setor bancário, caso a recapitalização e as restaurações do setor fossem realizas em uma fase inicial, os efeitos dos estímulos poderiam ser de curta duração, se o sistema financeiro estivesse em boa saúde. No Japão, as injeções nos bancos "em grande escala" ocorreram apenas em 1999. Por outro lado, a política monetária, com base em uma versão alternativa da armadilha da liquidez levou o BOJ a tomar algumas medidas... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This dissertation intend to analyze the experience of Japan after the collapse of speculative bubbles in assets in the 1990s. Accepting that the worst is over, that is to say, that the Japanese financial crisis was finally resolved, one thing is certain; not before a "lost decade" characterized by a long period of low growth, increasing rates of unemployment, deflation in asset prices, bank failures and persistence of no-performing loans. In this context, the main responses received for this work were: the belief that economic recovery would come with the passage of time and lack of understanding about the size of the problem that the slowness of action would lead to the system; this explains in some degree the initial tolerance of the Japanese government by the economic crisis. The expansionary fiscal was effective, but not consistently used, the nature of "stop-start" of the stimuli made, and in particular the early tax reversals decreased its effectiveness, other likely factors for the low efficiency during the year 1990 were: the fiscal stimuli may have been harmed by falling tax multipliers; the effective public investments were lower than those advertised instead of giving emphasis to public works, the priority was tax cuts. On the other hand, a fundamental way to maximize the tax incentives is through the restoration of credit from the banking sector, if the recapitalization and the restorations of the sector were held in an early stage, the effects of stimuli could be short term, if the financial system was in good health. In Japan, the injections in banks "large scale" occurred only in 1999. Moreover, monetary policy, based on an alternative version of the liquidity trap led the BOJ to take some innovative measures since 2001. Centered on a strategy to ensure liquidity and extend the warranties on direct purchases of assets, quantitative easing was implanted... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

In January 2013, the Japanese Government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Bank of Japan launched a package of monetary and fiscal stimulus along with promises of structural economic reform called Abenomics. This paper examines the preliminary effects of the Bank of Japan’s Quantitative and Qualitative Monetary Easing (QQE), which forms the monetary component of Abenomics. Given the weak economic response to QQE so far, the study predicts that QQE has failed to make a significant impact on its target macroeconomic variables of inflation and output. The results confirm this hypothesis as increases in the monetary base have an insignificant effect on the Consumer Price Index and have little effect in changing the trajectory of output. The results of QQE so far mirror those of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing programs, during which expansion of the monetary base in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis failed to significantly raise output given the size of the stimulus. Abenomics, however, continues to be implemented, making the results presented in this paper inconclusive.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:23:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-02-08Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:30:20Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 fraga_js_me_arafcl.pdf: 570399 bytes, checksum: c4d98662c4b2a66e86a84c364b2ae848 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O presente trabalho tem como objetivo analisar a experiência do Japão após os colapsos das bolhas especulativas dos ativos na década de 1990. Aceitando que o pior já passou, ou seja, que a crise financeira japonesa foi finalmente resolvida, uma coisa é certa; não antes de uma “década perdida” caracterizada por um longo período, de baixo crescimento, aumento das taxas de desemprego, deflação nos preços dos ativos, falências bancárias e persistência dos no-performing loans. Nesse contexto, as principais respostas obtidas por este trabalho foram: a crença que a recuperação econômica viria com o passar do tempo e a falta de entendimento sobre o tamanho do problema que a morosidade de atuação levaria ao sistema, explica em certo ponto a tolerância inicial do governo japonês frente à crise econômica. A política fiscal expansionista foi eficaz, mas, não utilizada de forma consistente, a natureza “stop-start” dos estímulos realizados, e em particular as prematuras reversões fiscais diminuíram a sua eficácia, outros fatores prováveis para a baixa eficácia durante os anos 90 foram: os estímulos fiscais podem ter sido prejudicados pela queda dos multiplicadores fiscais; os efetivos investimentos públicos foram menores que os anunciados e ao invés de se dar ênfase a obras públicas, priorizou-se cortes em impostos. De outra forma, um caminho fundamental de maximizar os estímulos fiscais é através da restauração do crédito do setor bancário, caso a recapitalização e as restaurações do setor fossem realizas em uma fase inicial, os efeitos dos estímulos poderiam ser de curta duração, se o sistema financeiro estivesse em boa saúde. No Japão, as injeções nos bancos “em grande escala” ocorreram apenas em 1999. Por outro lado, a política monetária, com base em uma versão alternativa da armadilha da liquidez levou o BOJ a tomar algumas medidas... / This dissertation intend to analyze the experience of Japan after the collapse of speculative bubbles in assets in the 1990s. Accepting that the worst is over, that is to say, that the Japanese financial crisis was finally resolved, one thing is certain; not before a “lost decade” characterized by a long period of low growth, increasing rates of unemployment, deflation in asset prices, bank failures and persistence of no-performing loans. In this context, the main responses received for this work were: the belief that economic recovery would come with the passage of time and lack of understanding about the size of the problem that the slowness of action would lead to the system; this explains in some degree the initial tolerance of the Japanese government by the economic crisis. The expansionary fiscal was effective, but not consistently used, the nature of “stop-start” of the stimuli made, and in particular the early tax reversals decreased its effectiveness, other likely factors for the low efficiency during the year 1990 were: the fiscal stimuli may have been harmed by falling tax multipliers; the effective public investments were lower than those advertised instead of giving emphasis to public works, the priority was tax cuts. On the other hand, a fundamental way to maximize the tax incentives is through the restoration of credit from the banking sector, if the recapitalization and the restorations of the sector were held in an early stage, the effects of stimuli could be short term, if the financial system was in good health. In Japan, the injections in banks “large scale” occurred only in 1999. Moreover, monetary policy, based on an alternative version of the liquidity trap led the BOJ to take some innovative measures since 2001. Centered on a strategy to ensure liquidity and extend the warranties on direct purchases of assets, quantitative easing was implanted... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Cette thèse est une tentative de mieux comprendre l’impact des différentes mesures prises par les banques centrales depuis 2008, et en particulier en zone Euro. Elle se concentre sur les effets des différents politiques non-conventionnelles sur le marché monétaire. Le chapitre 1 montre comment la fragmentation du marché interbancaire perturbe la transmission de la politique monétaire. Le phénomène de fragmentation est introduit dans un modèle standard de marché interbancaire. On voit alors que de la liquidité excédentaire apparaît de façon endogène dans le modèle. Cela conduit les taux d’intérêt à court terme à s’éloigner du taux de la banque centrale. Le modèle est utilisé pour analyser les politiques conventionnelles et non conventionnelles de l’Eurosystème. Le chapitre 2 explique comment le programme d’achat de titres souverains de l’Eurosystème (le PSPP) a poussé certains taux du marché monétaire en dessous du taux de la facilité de dépôt de l’Eurosystème, qui est pourtant sensé être un plancher. Le chapitre explore empiriquement les interactions entre le PSPP et les taux d’intérêts collatéralisés. Le chapitre 3 montre comment des régulations très proches de celles de Bâle III étaient utilisées par les banques centrales dans les trois décennies qui ont suivi la Seconde Guerre mondiale. A l’époque ces régulations étaient utilisées pour stabiliser l’inflation et la production, un rôle qui serait aujourd’hui typiquement attribué à la politique monétaire (et non à la régulation bancaire). Les expériences historiques que nous décrivons montrent clairement que la régulation de la liquidité a des effets restrictifs sur l’activité. / The first chapter shows how interbank market fragmentation disrupts the transmission of monetary policy. Fragmentation is the fact that banks, depending on their country of location,have different probabilities of default on their interbank borrowings. Once fragmentation is introduced into standard theoretical models of monetary policy implementation, excess liquidity arises endogenously. This leads short-term interest rates to depart from the central bank policy rates. Using data on cross-border financial flows and monetary policy operations,it is shown that this mechanism has been at work in the Euro-Area since 2008. The model is used to analyze conventional and unconventional monetary policy measures. The second chapter shows how the Euro area money market rates have been standing below the deposit facility rate since 2015, which financial markets perceive as a byproduct of Eurosystem's public sector purchase program (PSPP). This paper explores empirically the interactions between the PSPP and short term secured money market rates (repo rates). We document different channels through which asset purchases may affect the various segments of the Euro area repo market. Using proprietary data from the PSPP and individual repo transactions made on the repo market for specific securities, our results show that the PSPP has contributed to push down repo rates. Purchasing 1% of a bond outstanding is associated with a decline in its repo rate of -0.75 bps.