The recent crisis showed that price stability does not guarantee macroeconomic stability. In several countries, dangerous financial imbalances developed under low inflation and small output gaps. To ensure macroeconomic stability, policy has to include financial stability as an additional objective. But a new objective demands new tools: macroprudential tools that can target specific sources of financial imbalances (something monetary policy is not well suited to do). Effective macroprudential policies (which include a range of constraints on leverage and the composition of balance sheets) could then contain risks ex ante and help build buffers to absorb shocks ex post.

This paper provides background material to support the Board paper on the interaction of monetary and macroprudential policies. It analyzes the scope for and evidence on interactions between monetary and macroprudential policies. It first reviews a recent conceptual literature on interactive effects that arise when both macroprudential and monetary policy are employed. It goes on to explore the “side effects” of monetary policy on financial stability and their implications for macroprudential policy. It finally addresses the strength of possible effects of macroprudential policies on output and price stability, and draws out implications for the conduct of monetary policy.

The recent crisis showed that price stability does not guarantee macroeconomic stability. In several countries, dangerous financial imbalances developed under low inflation and small output gaps. To ensure macroeconomic stability, policy has to include financial stability as an additional objective. But a new objective demands new tools: macroprudential tools that can target specific sources of financial imbalances (something monetary policy is not well suited to do). Effective macroprudential policies (which include a range of constraints on leverage and the composition of balance sheets) could then contain risks ex ante and help build buffers to absorb shocks ex post.

MCM conducted a survey in December 2010 to take stock of international experiences with financial stability and the evolving macroprudential policy framework. The survey was designed to seek information in three broad areas: the institutional setup for macroprudential policy, the analytical approach to systemic risk monitoring, and the macroprudential policy toolkit. The survey was sent to 63 countries and the European Central Bank (ECB), including all countries in the G-20 and those subject to mandatory Financial Sector Assessment Programs (FSAPs). The target list is designed to cover a broad range of jurisdictions in all regions, but more weight is given to economies that are systemically important (see Annex for details). The response rate is 80 percent. This note provides a summary of the survey’s main findings.

The countercyclical capital buffer (CCB) was proposed by the Basel committee to increase the resilience of the banking sector to negative shocks. The interactions between banking sector losses and the real economy highlight the importance of building a capital buffer in periods when systemic risks are rising. Basel III introduces a framework for a time-varying capital buffer on top of the minimum capital requirement and another time-invariant buffer (the conservation buffer). The CCB aims to make banks more resilient against imbalances in credit markets and thereby enhance medium-term prospects of the economy—in good times when system-wide risks are growing, the regulators could impose the CCB which would help the banks to withstand losses in bad times.

Combining balance sheet data on 900,000 firms from 48 countries with information on the adoption of macroprudential policies during 2003-2011, we find that these policies are associated with lower credit growth. These effects are especially significant for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and young firms that, according to the literature, are more financially constrained and bank dependent. Among MSMEs and young firms, those with weaker balance sheets exhibit lower credit growth in conjunction with the adoption of macroprudential policies, suggesting that these policies can enhance financial stability. Finally, our results show that macroprudential policies have real effects, as they are associated with lower investment and sales growth.