The impact of the Public Sector Purchase Programme on lending to SMEs

We study the impact of the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) between 2015 and 2018 on lending volumes in the Eurozone. We find a connection between purchases under the PSPP and: (i) lending volumes on types of loans mainly obtained by SMEs; (ii) loans below 1 million euros during the expansion phase of the program until the end of 2016, and loans above 1 million euros in its contraction phase; (iii) substantial changes in lending volumes in economies with high levels of public debt and distressed financial systems, and; (iv) types of loans mainly obtained by SMEs in more resilient economies. These findings point to the effectiveness of the credit channel as a transmission mechanism of unconventional monetary policy and support the decision of the ECB to reactivate the program at the end of 2019.