We study negative interest rate policy (NIRP) exploiting ECB's NIRP introduction and administrative data from Italy, severely hit by the Eurozone crisis. NIRP has expansionary effects on credit supply-- -and hence the real economy---through a portfolio rebalancing channel. NIRP affects banks...

By providing liquidity to depositors and credit line borrowers, banks are exposed to doubleruns on assets and liabilities. For identification, we exploit the 2007 freeze of the European interbank market and the Italian Credit Register. After the shock, there are sizeable, aggregate double-runs....