Why negative interest rates end up leading to a restrictive monetary policy
Several central banks (the ECB, Sweden’s Riksbank, the Swiss National Bank) have decided to conduct negative interest rate policies. The economic research literature now shows that negative interest rate policies end up leading to a restrictive monetary policy. The argument is that these policies reduce banks’ profitability and capital, leading to a contraction in credit supply and, consequently , higher loan interest rate margins.(1) We examine whether this effect is present in the case of the euro zone and the ECB. We do not find that it is currently present. If the ECB took account of th e risk that a negative central bank policy rate may actually end up leading to a restrictive monetary policy , it would probably exit its negative interest rate policy, even though this mechanism is not yet visible at present. This has been shown in the case of Sweden by: G. Eggertsson, R. Juelsrud, L. Summers, E.G. Wold (2019) “Negative Nominal Interest Rates and the Bank Lending Channel†NBER Working Paper no. 25416, January