app ) at a monthly pace of €20 billion as from 1 november and without a defined time limit. in order to preserve favourable bank lending conditions, the modalities of the new series of quarterly targeted longer - term refinancing operations ( tltro iii ) were also changed, eliminating the 10 bp spread established on the interest rates applied to them and extending their maturity from two to three years. finally, in order to support the bank - based transmission of monetary policy, a two - tier system for reserve remuneration was announced, such that part of banks ’ holdings of excess liquidity will be exempt from the negative deposit facility rate. these decisions aim to counter the worsening growth and inflation outlook by means of a package of measures that complement one another, easing financial conditions by a different route. the resumption of net purchases, without a defined time limit, also has an important signalling effect with respect to the governing council ’ s commitment to meet its inflation aim, which is particularly relevant in the current context of inflation expectations at risk of becoming de - anchored. in addition, the period of time over which the net asset purchases and the reinvestment of existing assets will continue is anchored to the normalisation of interest rates, thus enhancing the consistency and complementarity of the different measures and their dynamic adjustment to inflation. in a setting of heightened uncertainty, this automatic adjustment of the expectations about the future path of monetary policy in the face of potential changes in the macroeconomic environment is particularly desirable. monetary policy measures have contributed to the increase in activity and in inflation economic research shows that these measures have been effective in the recent past, in terms of easing financial conditions and encouraging lending. bearing this in mind, the new package of measures will boost economic activity in the euro area against a background of high uncertainty and will help to bring about the convergence of inflation to levels in line with the ecb's mandate. as regards negative interest rates, although there is no conclusive evidence to date that they have adversely affected the supply of bank credit, we cannot rule out that maintaining 5 / 18 rates at very low levels for an additional, potentially extended, period of time, could ultimately have some negative consequences for the bank - based transmission of monetary policy. in this regard, the mitigating measures adopted by the ecb, consisting of a tiered system for remunerating excess liquidity holdings, are intended to soften the negative impact on bank profitability of the

a determining factor in explaining why spanish firms are less productive than their european counterparts. this technological capital gap between spain and its european partners is at least partly due to structural characteristics which limit firms ’ innovative capacity, such as the lack of available human capital referred to above, or a productive structure skewed towards sectors with a low technological content. another basic determinant requiring special attention and which poses major challenges in the current context of technological change, is the access to finance – whether public or private – for business projects with a high innovative content. financing of innovation in general, the growth of firms is conditioned by the availability of external finance to undertake new investment projects. but external finance also plays a particularly vital role in the success of the innovative projects of small new firms whose characteristics make it more difficult for them to obtain funds. 9 these greater difficulties have their origin in information asymmetries between firms and financiers and in the comparatively higher inherent risk than that for established companies, all the more so when the returns will only be received in the long term. these characteristics contrast with the preferences of capital market financiers, who tend to seek more shortterm returns and have a certain aversion to risk. 10 evidently these asymmetries apply to any investment project. but they are particularly important in the case of innovative projects in spain, where external finance comes mainly in the form of bank loans, due to the absence of sufficiently developed alternative capital markets, as evidenced by the fact that bond issues still represent barely 10 % of the total finance received by spanish non - financial corporations, compared with 40 % in the usa. see s. fazzari, r. hubbard and b. petersen ( 1988 ), “ financing constraints and corporate investment ”, brookings papers on economic activity, vol. 1, pp. 141 - 206. see a. goodare and i. tonks ( 1995 ), “ finance and technological change ”, in p. stoneman ( ed. ), handbook of the economics of innovation and technological change, wiley - blackwell, pp. 298 - 341. 14 / 18 financing innovation the most recent period has seen some growth of non - bank financing in spain and a certain improvement in the allocation of bank financing compared with the period immediately before the crisis, during which the firms receiving credit were characterised by their low productivity and a high proportion of real estate assets on their balance sheets. this largely explains the low dynamism of aggregate productivity in