We identify the effects of monetary policy on credit risk-taking with an exhaustive credit register of loan applications and contracts. We separate the changes in the composition of the supply of credit from the concurrent changes in the volume of supply and quality, and the volume of demand. We employ a two-stage model that analyzes the granting of loan applications in the first stage and loan outcomes for the applications granted in the second stage, and that controls for both observed and unobserved, time-varying, firm and bank heterogeneity through time*firm and time*bank fixed effects. We find that a lower overnight interest rate induces lowly capitalized banks to grant more loan applications to ex ante risky firms and to commit larger loan volumes with fewer collateral requirements to these firms, yet with a higher ex post likelihood of default. A lower long-term interest rate and other relevant macroeconomic variables have no such effects.

We show that a U‐shaped monetary rate path increases banking crisis risk, via credit and asset price cycles, analyzing 17 countries over 150 years. Rate hikes (raw or instrumented) increase crisis risk, but only if preceded by prolonged cuts. These patterns are unique to banking crises, unlike noncrisis recessions. Regarding the mechanism, prolonged cuts raise the likelihood of large credit and asset price booms, consistent with higher credit supply and risk‐taking. Subsequent hikes strongly reduce credit and asset prices, and increase banks' realized credit risk, rather than interest rate risk. We find consistent results in administrative loan‐level data for Spain.

We study how firm-level carbon emissions affect bank lending and real outcomes in a sample of global firms with syndicated loans. We exploit bank-level climate commitments as firm-level shocks to lending relationships, using firms' prior credit exposures to identify credit supply effects. Firms with higher emissions that previously borrowed from committed banks receive less bank credit. Evidence from lending volumes, prices, and within-firm-time loan-level data indicates a supply-side shift away from high-emission firms, not explained by borrower risk. Affected firms reduce debt, leverage, size, and investment, yet we find no reduction in future emissions, instead documenting evidence consistent with greenwashing.

We analyze how countercyclical liquidity policy—via reserve requirements (RRs)—affects the credit cycle. For identification, we exploit supervisory credit register data and RR changes in Brazil made for monetary and macroprudential purposes and affecting banks differently. We find that countercyclical liquidity policy smooths credit supply cycles at the loan and firm levels. The effects of easing during crises are three times stronger than are those of tightening during booms, particularly for low-risk firms. We also explore interest rate policy. Credit supply effects are stronger among high-risk firms and during tightening, when interest rates are more effective than RRs.

We study the risk-taking channel of monetary policy in Bolivia, a dollarized country where monetary changes are transmitted exogenously from the USA. We find that a lower policy rate spurs the granting of riskier loans, to borrowers with worse credit histories, lower ex-ante internal ratings, and weaker ex-post performance (acutely so when the rate subsequently increases). Effects are stronger for small firms borrowing from multiple banks. To uniquely identify risk-taking, we assess collateral coverage, expected returns, and risk premia of the newly granted riskier loans, finding that their returns and premia are actually lower, especially at banks suffering from agency problems.

We analyze the distributional effects of macroprudential policy on mortgage cycles by exploiting the U.K. mortgage register and a 2014 15% limit imposed on lenders’ high loan-to-income (LTI) mortgages. Constrained lenders issue fewer and more expensive high-LTI mortgages, with stronger effects on low-income borrowers. Unconstrained lenders strongly substitute high-LTI loans in local areas with higher constrained lender presence, but not high-LTI loans to low-income borrowers—consistent with adverse selection problems—implying lower overall credit to low-income borrowers. Consistently, policy-affected areas experience lower house price growth postregulation and, following the Brexit referendum (negative aggregate shock), better house price growth and lower mortgage defaults for low-income borrowers.

We investigate the connections between bank capital regulation and the prevalence of lightly regulated nonbanks (shadow banks) in the U.S. corporate loan market. For identification, we exploit a supervisory credit register of syndicated loans, loan-time fixed effects, and shocks to capital requirements arising from surprise features of the U.S. implementation of Basel III. We find that less-capitalized banks reduce loan retention, particularly among loans with higher capital requirements and at times when capital is scarce, and nonbanks step in. This reallocation is associated with important adverse effects during the 2008 crisis: loans funded by nonbanks with fragile liabilities are less likely to be rolled over and experience greater price volatility.

We analyze the impact of monetary policy on the supply of bank credit. Monetary policy affects both loan supply and demand, thus making identification a steep challenge. We therefore analyze a novel, supervisory dataset with loan applications from Spain. Accounting for time-varying firm heterogeneity in loan demand, we find that tighter monetary and worse economic conditions substantially reduce loan granting, especially from banks with lower capital or liquidity ratios; responding to applications for the same loan, weak banks are less likely to grant the loan. Finally, firms cannot offset the resultant credit restriction by applying to other banks.

By providing liquidity to depositors and credit-line borrowers, banks can be exposed to double-runs on assets and liabilities. For identification, we exploit the 2007 freeze of the European interbank market and the Italian Credit Register. After the shock, there are sizeable, aggregate double-runs. In the cross-section, credit-line drawdowns are not larger for banks more exposed to the interbank market; however, they are larger when we condition on the same firms with multiple credit lines. We show that, ex-ante, more exposed banks actively manage their liquidity risk by granting fewer credit lines to firms that run more during crises.

We show that FX interventions can be effective, particularly in attenuating global financial spillovers. We exploit global financial shocks and Brazilian central bank interventions in FX derivatives using three matched administrative registers: bank credit (to firms), foreign credit to banks, and employer‐employees. After the U.S. Taper Tantrum (followed by emerging markets' FX turbulence), Brazilian banks with more foreign debt cut credit supply, reducing firm‐level employment. A subsequent large policy intervention supplying derivatives against FX risks — hedger of last resort — halved the negative effects. A 2008 to 2015 panel exploiting global FX shocks and local FX interventions confirms the results and the hedging channel. However, the FX policy entails fiscal and moral hazard costs.