Research Interests
Research Interests
International Economics, Monetary Macroeconomics, and Firm Finance.
International Economics, Monetary Macroeconomics, and Firm Finance.
The Post-2015 German Lending Surge: What Role for QE?, Hannover Economic Papers No. 740, 2025.
This paper uses German microdata to test whether the ECB's quantitative easing (QE) spurred bank lending to non-financial firms. Bank-firm loan data allow me to control for loan demand at firm level. The share of bonds in banks’ total assets before QE serves as treatment proxy. While the effects are positive and statistically significant, they are small: Increasing the bond/asset share in a firm's lender bank by one standard deviation increases the de-trended outstanding bilateral loan volume by 3-5% of its within-sample mean. At firm level, no unambiguous effect can be observed.
Differential Effects of Unconventional Monetary Policy, Hannover Economic Papers No. 704, 2023
Did the Eurosystem's quantitative easing from 2015 to 2018 have differential effects regarding the bank lending volume to different institutional sectors, industry sectors, or types of loans? To investigate this question, this paper employs linked microdata of the German banking system. These allow for computing the volume of bond redemptions at bank level as a measure of banks' exposure to QE. Because when a bond matures, the bank is faced with the decision of whether to reinvest the proceeds into bonds or whether to rebalance into another asset such as loans. When the central bank squeezes bond yields through large-scale purchases, banks with more redemptions have a stronger incentive to rebalance. However, a fixed effects model reveals no significant difference between banks with a high exposure compared to the control group regarding their overall loan growth. Neither can any of the mentioned differential effects be observed. While these findings are at odds with some of the previous empirical literature, they are in line with theories that argue that lending is purely demand-led and any central bank action geared towards the supply side of the loan market merely constitutes ``pushing the string''.
Firm Expectations and Indebtedness.
This paper explores the link between business outlook and corporate debt. Previous research has found business outlook to be a key determinant of firm investment and firm investment to be a key reason for firms to take on debt. This implies a direct connection between outlook and debt. Indeed, panel regressions show a tight connection between business sentiment and firms' debt growth. A mediation analysis reveals that most of this effect runs through inventories and accounts receivable, whereas for net investment only a smaller effect can be found.
Is There a German China Shock?
After 15 years of strong expansion, the German manufacturing sector entered stagnation in 2018. Some authors argue that Germany has been hit by a `China shock' akin to the US in the early 2000s. During the first China shock, Germany had been a net beneficiary as it served as a supplier of capital goods to China which, in turn, mostly exported low- and middle-tech goods. After successfully moving up the value chain, China has become a high-tech exporter itself and hence turned from a customer to a competitor of the German manufacturing sector. This project seeks to investigate the impact of the change in the composition of China's (net) exports on German manufacturing firms.
Capital Flows and Bank Lending.
During the euro crisis, Germany was the destination of large amounts of flight capital from Southern Europe. Previous research has identified a tight connection between capital inflows and both the size and composition of credit to the domestic non-financial sector. This project seeks to test whether these effects can be identified in German microdata during the euro crisis.
Firm Debt and Monetary Policy Tightening.
After over a decade of loose monetary policy, the Eurosystem entered a tightening cycle of unprecedented speed in 2022. Theoretically, firms with higher leverage should decrease their economic activity more sharply when rates go up as their higher debt service burden absorbs more of their income. The goal of this project is to test this hypothesis using German and/or European firm microdata.