IMF Working Papers

Central bank liquidity lines have gained momentum since the global financial crisis as a crosscurrency liquidity management tool. We provide a complete timeline of the ECB liquidity line announcements and study their signalling and spillback effects. The announcement of an ECB euro liquidity line decreases the premium paid by foreign agents to borrow euros in FX markets relative to currencies not covered by these facilities by 51 basis points. Consistent with a stylized model, bank equity prices increase by around 1.75% in euro area countries highly exposed via banking linkages to countries whose currencies are targeted by liquidity lines.