Do negative policy rates hinder banks' transmission of monetary policy? To answer this question, we examine the behaviour of Italian mortgage lenders using a novel loan-level dataset. When policy rates turn negative, banks with higher ratios of retail overnight deposits to total assets charge...

Negative monetary policy rates are associated with a particular friction because the remuneration of retail deposits tends to be floored at zero. We investigate whether this friction affects banks’ reactions when the policy rate is lowered to negative levels, compared to a standard rate cut in...