The transmission of macroprudential policy in the tails: evidence from a narrative approach

We estimate the causal effects of macroprudential policies on the entire distribution of GDP growth for advanced European economies using a narrative-identification strategy in a quantile-regression framework. While macroprudential policy has near-zero effects on the center of the GDP-growth distribution, tighter policy brings benefits by reducing the variance of future growth, significantly boosting the left tail while simultaneously reducing the right. Assessing a range of channels through which these effects materialize, we find that macroprudential policy particularly operates through ‘credit-at-risk’: it reduces the right tail of future credit growth, dampening booms, in turn reducing the likelihood of extreme GDP-growth outturns.