The Bank Lending Channel in the Netherlands: The Impact of Monetary Policy on Households and Firms

This paper presents empirical evidence of the existence of a bank lending channel in the Netherlands by analyzing the responses of different borrower groups to a contraction of monetary policy. It is found that corporate loans are depressed only after a lapse of over a year, whereas household loans decrease almost instantly due to an interest rate rise. However, since the latter reaction is not accompanied by a fall in consumer expenditure, the bank lending channel is probably not very important for the transmission of monetary policy in the Netherlands. It appears that households, as well as banks and firms, tend to buffer monetary policy shocks through adjustments in liquid financial instruments.