Essays in monetary policy and household finance

This dissertation consists of three essays that examine the effects of different monetary policy tools on the the real economy and asset prices. In Chapter 1, I study the transmission of central bank asset purchases into the real economy of the Euro Area, while Chapter 2 instead focuses on the effect of more conventional interest rate policy on asset prices and risk premia. Chapter 3 demonstrates how the pass-through of more conventional policy rate changes depends on the monetary policy framework of the central bank. In the first chapter, I study the role of local banking systems in the propagation of ECB Quantitative Easing (QE) programs. I firstly document that local deposit markets are fragmented across country lines, but the assets held by banks backing the deposits are in more integrated markets. I then consider a multi-country New Keynesian model with heterogeneous banking sectors but common monetary policy. All banks can access collateral from the same union-wide asset market, using them to back liquid deposit liabilities that are issued locally. QE has real effects if it increases the quantity or quality of collateral available to the banking sector. I find that QE has a powerful effect across the currency union, raising output and inflation by 62bps and 60bps, respectively. The pass-through is very similar across countries, despite fragmented deposit markets, as all banks face the same reduction in the cost of collateral from the union-wide asset market. The overall impact increases significantly if the beginning of QE coincides with adjusting the policy rate rule to be a weaker counteracting force by making it less responsive to inflation. In the second chapter, co-authored with Matteo Leombroni, we study the role of the household portfolio rebalancing channel for the aggregate and redistributive effects of monetary policy. The transmission of monetary policy works not only through the usual income and substitution motives, but also through an endogenous portfolio rebalancing effect that generates changes in equilibrium asset prices and a consequent wealth effect on consumption. We introduce a heterogeneous household life-cycle model with multiple assets and combine it with an incomplete markets asset pricing framework. We model monetary policy shocks as a reduction in the expected return on safe assets. In equilibrium, the reduction in bonds investment prompts a portfolio rebalancing toward riskier assets, inducing an increase in asset prices and wealth. We find that, absent wealth effects, older cohorts reduce consumption as they face lower expected asset returns, while younger cohorts raise consumption as they can borrow more cheaply. This heterogeneity remains with wealth effects, but responses turn positive for all cohorts. Asset risk premia rise because the risk compensation effect (need for more returns to hold more risk) dominates the risk tolerance effect (positive wealth effect on risky asset holdings). Shutting down household heterogeneity flips the risk premia responses negative. In the third chapter, co-authored with Monika Piazzesi and Martin Schneider, we study a New Keynesian model with a banking system. The central bank targets the interest rate on short safe bonds that are held by banks to back inside money and hence earn convenience yield for their safety or liquidity. Central bank operating procedures matter. In a floor system, the reserve rate and the quantity of reserves are independent policy tools that affect banks' cost of safety. In a corridor system, increasing the interbank rate by making reserves scarce increases banks' cost of liquidity and generates strong pass-through to other rates of return, output and inflation. In either system, policy rules that do not respond aggressively to inflation -- such as an interest rate peg -- need not lead to self-fulfilling fluctuations. The stabilizing effect from an endogenous convenience yield is stronger when there are more nominal rigidities in bank balance sheets

Keywords: Economics.
Advisor: Piazzesi Monika
Schneider Martin (Professor of economics)
Tonetti Christopher