We use Italian data on bank lending to firms to study the transmission of shocks affecting bank balance sheets to the volume and cost of credit granted to business borrowers and to the probability of banks accepting loan applications from new borrowers during the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The...

We study negative interest rate policy (NIRP) exploiting ECB's NIRP introduction and administrative data from Italy, severely hit by the Eurozone crisis. NIRP has expansionary effects on credit supply-- -and hence the real economy---through a portfolio rebalancing channel. NIRP affects banks...

Monetary policy transmission may be impaired if banks rebalance their portfolios towards securities. We identify the bank lending and risk-taking channels of monetary policy by exploiting – Italian's unique – credit and security registers. In crisis times, with higher ECB liquidity, less...