Monetary policy transmission through the financial system to households

This Occasional Paper reviews evidence from the ChaMP Research Network on the transmission of monetary policy to households in the euro area – an area of monetary policy that has attracted less attention among researchers. It highlights thecentral role of banks and non-bank intermediaries in shaping how policy affects borrowing, saving and consumption. Despite the overall effectiveness of monetary policy in the euro area, the pass-through of policy rates to household borrowingcosts is incomplete and heterogeneous, reflecting differences in funding structures, market power and institutional settings.A key insight is that transmission depends on household heterogeneity. Differences in balance sheets, credit access and housing market characteristics produce uneven effects across income, age and wealth groups, with important implications foraggregate demand and distributional consequences. Another key finding is that several components of consumption respond more rapidly to changes in interest rates than previously thought, especially in high-debt, variable-rate environments.Overall, the findings point to the need for an integrated, system-wide perspective that accounts for multiple aspects of financial structure and heterogeneity when assessing monetary policy transmission. ChaMP research also highlights the valueof readily available granular data, as many novel findings stem from a major coordinated effort to use new data on households obtained from national credit registers, as well as novel granular data on household expenditure.