The Impact of the ECB Monetary Policy on Systemic Risk Changes in Eurozone

This study examines the impact of ECB’s monetary policy decisions on the state of financial stability in Eurozone countries in the form of systemic risk in the banking sector. We argue that the environment of low interest rates encourages bank risk taking and increases systemic risk. We employ time-varying parameter structural vector autoregressive model to test the response of systemic risk measured by the market-based SRISK indicator to changes in monetary policy based on official ECB statistics. Our results indicate that unconventional monetary policy in form of quantitative easing further escalates financial instability in Eurozone countries.