Climate Change Mitigation: How Effective is Green Quantitative Easing?

Climate Change Mitigation: How Effective is Green Quantitative Easing?

We develop a two sector integrated assessment model with incomplete markets to analyze the effectiveness of green quantitative easing in complementing fiscal policies for climate change mitigation. We model green quantitative easing through a given outstanding stock of bonds held by a monetary authority and its portfolio allocation between a clean (green) and a dirty (brown) sector of production. Our key research question is whether the monetary authority can effectively contribute to a reduction of global damages caused by carbon emissions. Our findings show that green quantitative easing does not lead to a perfect crowding out of capital and thus has real effects in the long-run. Since it only indirectly affects the allocation of production to dirty and clean technologies and since its overall economic size is relatively small, green quantitative easing is, however, a less effective climate change mitigating policy instrument than carbon taxes. We conclude that green quantitative easing might be a quantitatively important complement to fiscal policies if governments only insufficiently coordinate on implementing green fiscal policies

Authors

Marien Ferdinandusse

European Central Bank

Carolin Nerlich

European Central Bank

Published August 15, 2021