Monetary Policy Transmission in Poland: a Study of the Importance of Interest Rate and Credit Channels

The importance of credit in the monetary transmission mechanism has recently attained a lot of attention due to a growing understanding that credit market imperfections can have an impact on the monetary policy effectiveness. In this study, using Vector Error Correction Models (VECMs) and Structural Vector Autoregressions (S-VARs), we go in-depth of the role of credit in the Polish monetary policy transmission. Papers on the role of credit in the money transmission mechanism (MTM) in Poland show that the credit channel operates. It seems however, that factors through which it affects the aggregate demand might have changed over time. The most recent study on the bank-level data suggests that the degree of bank liquidity has an impact on its efficiency: the most liquid banks do not reduce their loan supply for firms after monetary policy tightening. Previous works suggested that bank size and capital as well as variables connected with risk taking might have played a role in the credit channel operation. The results presented in this study suggest that the monetary policy impact on loan supply is, if anything, weak. One of the reasons is that Polish banks hold large amounts of highly liquid assets in their portfolios. Banks are therefore able to implement buffer-stock behaviour: in response to a tighter monetary policy, they can reduce their stocks of most liquid assets and insulate loan portfolios. To shed some light on the behaviour of the corporate sector we show how interest rate shocks affect the indebtedness of various types of firms (private, individual . i.e. small privately owned entities employing up to nine persons, state-owned). Since the balance sheet channel (one of the concepts within the broad credit channel theory) stresses the impact of monetary policy on the borrowers. balance sheets, we examine the relationship between loans and financial standing of firms. We find some support for the hypothesis that firms. balance sheets are an important factor in the loan supply function. We also analyse the reactions of various types of loans, i.e. investment, revolving and export credit, as well as real estate and securities loans to monetary policy shocks. Our results suggest that after a monetary tightening the response of investment loans differs from the response of other types of loans.