Table A1.
Unconventional monetary policy announcements in 37 countries: January 22, 2020 - April 30, 2020.
| Country | Announcements |
|---|---|
| Argentina | On March 19, the Central bank of Argentina announced that banks must reduce their LELIQ positions in order to lending more loans to the public. |
| Australia | On March 13, the reserve bank of Australia injected 8.8 billion AUDs into markets in its open-market operations. On March 19, the reserve bank of Australia announced to enter quantitative easing mode. |
| Euro areaa | On March 10, the European commission said it would use all tools to maintain the economic stability. On March 12, the European central bank unveiled its latest comprehensive portfolio of monetary policy tools: increasing temporary and long-term refinancing operations; launching the new targeted longer-term refinancing operation (TLTRO-III); increasing bond purchases by 120 billion euros by the end of 2020; temporarily relaxing banking regulatory requirements on capital and liquidity ratios. On March 18, the European central bank announced an emergency purchase program in the amount of 750 billion euros. |
| Brazil | On March 23, Bank of Brazil reduced the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) from 25% to 17%. |
| Canada | – |
| Chile | On March 27, the central bank of Chile announced that it would relax its liquidity management rules for banks. |
| China | On February 3, the People's Bank of China (PBC) launched the reverse repo operation on the open market for 1.2 trillion yuan. On February 7, the PBC set up a special re-lending program in the amount of 300 billion yuan. On February 26, the PBC increased its quota for refinancing and rediscount by 500 billion yuan. On March 13, the PBC announced that it would implement a targeted reduction in the reserve requirement ratio for inclusive finance on March 16, 2020. On April 3, the PBC announced that it would reduce the required reserve ratio for small and medium-sized banks by 1 percentage point. |
| India | On March 16, the governor of the reserve bank of India announced a long-term refinancing operation in the amount of 1 trillion rupees. On March 27, India reduced its reverse repo rate by 90 basis points to 4.0%. On April 17, the reserve bank of India injected 500 billion rupees into the financial system. |
| Indonesia | Indonesia's central bank bought government bonds of 8 and 6 trillion rupiahs on March 12 and 13, respectively. |
| Israel | On April 21, the bank of Israel announced a relaxation of mortgage lending rules in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| Japan | On March 16, the Bank of Japan announced the quantitative and qualitative easing policy, increasing the annual purchase target of ETF to 12 trillion yen, adjusting the purchase scale of corporate bonds and commercial bonds, and increasing the purchase target of Japanese real estate investment trust to 180 billion yen. On March 19, the bank of Japan announced to purchase of JPY 1 trillion of Japanese public bonds. On April 27, the Bank of Japan decided to ease monetary policy, including expanding its purchases of commercial paper and corporate bonds. It also decided to cancel the limit of government bond purchases. |
| Mexico | —b |
| Pakistan | – |
| Peru | – |
| Poland | – |
| Qatar | – |
| Romania | – |
| Russia | On March 17, the central bank of Russia announced that it would use liquidity facilities and relax the banking and financial regulations to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| Saudi Arabia | On March 14, the central banks of United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia jointly announced a stimulus plan in the amount of 40 billion dollars. |
| Singapore | On March 26, Singapore's monetary authority announced it would provide up to 60 billion dollars to the banking sector. On April 7, the monetary authority of Singapore announced the relaxation of some regulations to assist financial institutions to support their clients in the face of COVID-19 pandemic. |
| South Africa | – |
| South Korea | On March 19, the Bank of Korea bought KRW 1.5 trillion of government bonds. On March 26, the Bank of Korea announced it would pump unlimited amounts of cash into the market through repurchase operations. |
| Sweden | On March 13, the Riksbank announced it would offer loans of up to SEK 500 billion to the companies. On April 22, the Riksbank said it would buy municipal bonds. |
| Switzerland | – |
| Turkey | – |
| Ukraine | On March 16, Ukraine's President obliged the central bank, Ministry of Finance, state-owned commercial banks to provide loan support and tax changes for small and medium-sized enterprises to respond to COVID-19 pandemic. |
| United Arab Emirates | On March 14, the central banks of United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia jointly announced a stimulus plan in the amount of 40 billion dollars. Regulators in United Arab Emirates planned to provide 100 billion dirhams to the country's banks and businesses. |
| United Kingdom | On March 19, the Bank of England decided to increase its holdings of the UK government bonds and corporate bonds by GBP 200 billion to GBP 645 billion, as well as expand its term funding facility. |
| United States | On March 17, the Federal Reserve reactivated its commercial-paper funding facility, restarted the primary dealer credit facility. On March 18, the U.S. Treasury secretary approved the creation of the money market investor financing facility. On March 19, the Federal Reserve reported that it would buy USD 68 billion of interest-bearing Treasury securities in the morning and afternoon of Thursday and Friday, and about USD 7 billion of Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) each day. On March 23, the Federal Reserve announced that it would carry out unlimited and open-ended quantitative easing (QE). On March 26, the Federal Reserve decided to cut the reserve requirement ratio to zero. On March 31, the Federal Reserve announced the creation of a temporary repurchase agreement facility for foreign and international monetary authorities. On April 9, the Federal Reserve announced a credit-support program in the amount of 2.3 trillion dollars and some purchases of high-yield bonds. On April 23, the Federal Reserve announced the fourth bail-out program in the amount of 484 billion dollars. |
Source: Author's compilation based on the website of central bank and various issues of monetary policy report of each country.
a
The euro area countries in our sample contain Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
b
“—” means the unconventional monetary policy remains unchanged in the COVID-19 pandemic period (January 22, 2020 - April 30, 2020).