Monetary policy and redistribution: information from central bank balance sheets in the Euro area and the US

The exceptional measures by central banks during the financial crisis have led to renewed interest in the redistributive effects of monetary policy. This paper adopts the perspective of central bank balance sheets to assess such effects. It uses information from the euro area National Central Banks and the US Federal Reserve Banks to analyse the regional and sectoral effects of monetary policy. Central bank balance sheets capture sustained imbalances in payment flows across the euro area countries that peaked at 10% of GDP in the so-called Target balances, and across the US districts that reached 5% of GDP in the equivalent Interdistrict Settlement Accounts. These imbalances, combined with accommodative central bank liquidity, shifted risks from the private financial sector to the public sector and among taxpayers – yet, mechanisms are in place to mitigate such risks and the associated redistributive effects. The liquidity injection, while directly channelled at the stressed regions or sectors, has indirectly supported the financial sector at large. In different institutional contexts, the financial centres in Germany and in the New York district have been strengthened. They have been net recipients of payment inflows from the rest of the respective currency areas, equivalent in amounts to a third of the liquidity injection during the crisis.