Quantitative Easing and the Safe Asset Illusion

Abstract

The massive recourse to quantitative easing (QE) calls for a better understanding of its effects on safe assets. Based on a simple balance sheet framework, we show how QE impacts the total amount, cross-sectional distribution, and composition of safe assets in the economy. Analyzing the ECB's Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP), we find that the amount of universally accessible safe assets decreases and there is a transfer of safe assets from the non-bank to the banking sector. We call this phenomenon the safe asset illusion. The sectoral shift in the holding structure of safe assets has important implications for financial stability and the cost of secured liquidity.

Bank Risk-Taking and Impaired Monetarypolicy Transmission

“…The current level of excess reserves by the banking sector is primarily driven by the quantitative easing (QE) programs of central banks. For example, since 2015, the euro area banking sector increased reserve holdings by more than EUR 1.3 trillion(Bechtel et al, 2021).4 As a technical condition to ensure the uniqueness of the equilibrium, we assume that L(•) is not too concave, i.e., |L (r L )| is bounded above.…”