We analyze securities trading by banks and the associated spillovers to the supply of credit.Empirical analysis has been elusive due to the lack of securities register for banks. We use a unique, proprietary dataset that has the investments of banks at the security level for 2005-2012 in...

We show that negative monetary policy rates induce systemic banks to reach-for-yield. For identification, we exploit the introduction of negative deposit rates by the European Central Bank in June 2014 and a novel securities register for the 26 largest euro area banking groups. Banks with more...