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The paper exploits a unique panel, covering some 2,000 Italian manufacturing firms and 14 years of data on individual prices and individual interest rates paid on several types of debt, to address the question of the existence of a channel of transmission of monetary policy operating through the effect of interest expenses on the marginal cost of production. It has been argued that this mechanism may explain the dimension of the real effects of monetary policy, give a rationale for the positive short-run response of prices to interest rate increases (the "price puzzle") and call for a more gradual monetary policy response to shocks. We find robust evidence in favor of the presence of a cost channel of monetary policy transmission, proportional to the amount of working capital held by each firm. The channel is large enough to have non-trivial monetary policy implications.JEL codes: E52, E31

We study empirically the distributional implications of a non-standard monetary policy expansion, considering the measures implemented by the Eurosystem in 2011-2013 and exploiting a rich micro dataset on Italian households' income and wealth, in order to take contemporaneously into account a number of income-and wealth-related channels. Our results do not support the claim that an unconventional monetary loosening acts as a "reverse Robin Hood". Larger benefits accrue to households at the bottom of the income scale, as the effects via the stimulus to economic activity and employment outweigh those via financial variables. The response of net wealth is U-shaped: less wealthy households take advantage of their leveraged positions, wealthier households of their larger share of financial assets. Overall, the effects on inequality are negligible. The results also suggest that the risk of an "expropriation of savers" is not likely to materialize, as the decrease in the remuneration of savings is compensated by support to labor income and by capital gains.

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