Lender of last resort, buyer of last resort, and a fear of fire sales in the sovereign bond market*

We document the mechanism through which the risk of fire sales in the sovereign bond market contributed to the effectiveness of two major central bank interventions designed to restore financial stability during the European sovereign debt crisis. As a lender of last resort via the long-term refinancing operations (LTROs), the European Central Bank (ECB) improved the collateral value of sovereign bonds of peripheral countries. This resulted in an elevated concentration of these bonds in the portfolios of domestic banks, increasing fire-sale risk and making both banks and sovereign bonds riskier. In contrast, the ECB's announcement of being a potential buyer of last resort via the Outright Monetary Transaction (OMT) program attracted new investors and reduced fire-sale risk in the sovereign bond market

Effectiveness of Unconventional Monetary Policy in the Euro Area: An Assessment Based on a Literature Survey

The ECB has adopted a variety of unconventional monetary policy measures since the Global Financial Crisis. In this paper, we assess the effectiveness of unconventional monetary policy measures based on a review of the empirical literature and on theoretical considerations. Empirical assessments exhibit a high uncertainty since it is very difficult to identify the definite effects of unconventional monetary policy and historical evidence is scarce. Therefore, the estimated effects vary considerably across studies. Overall, the available evidence for the euro area suggests that unconventional measures had significant effects on financial market variables, e. g., they reduced long-term interest rates or stimulated asset prices. Unconventional monetary policy also seems to have stimulated economic activity (GDP and consumer prices) to some extent. The available evidence suggests that unconventional monetary policy had the largest effects at the height of the Global Financial Crisis and the sovereign debt crises on economic activity in the euro area. Afterwards, the effects on economic activity most likely have been rather low. Moreover, the risks associated with unconventional monetary policy measures are expected to increase while the effects on economic activity decrease the longer they are in place