Abstract:
This paper uses German microdata to test whether the ECB's quantitative easing (QE) spurred bank lending to non-financial firms. Bank-firm loan data allow me to control for loan demand at firm level. The share of bonds in banks' total assets before QE serves as treatment proxy. While the effects are positive and statistically significant, they are small: Increasing the bond/asset share in a firm's lender bank by one standard deviation increases the de-trended outstanding bilateral loan volume by 3-5% of its within-sample mean. At firm level, no unambiguous effect can be observed.
