Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.46672/zsl.7.8.8
Securities in the balance sheets of the Croatian National Bank and the Bank of Slovenia – What does the balance sheet of the Eurosystem show?
Ante Samodol
orcid.org/0000-0002-6609-2396
; Libertas International University, Zagreb, Croatia
Rafaela Radoš
; Libertas International University, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The Croatian National Bank (CNB) becomes member of the Eurosystem with the introduction of the euro as the national currency, while its balance sheet is expected to undergo changes in the structure of assets and liabilities. The Bank of Slovenia (BS) has been member of the Eurosystem since 2007, when Slovenia introduced the euro as its national currency. For fifteen years, the balance sheet of the BS has mirrored the overall monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB). On the other hand, during the same period, the CNB implemented its own monetary policy with different measures and instruments that determined the structure of the CNB's balance sheet. The first goal of this paper is to analyse one part of the assets of the CNB, BS and ECB, with regard to the amounts and dynamics of investments in securities in the period from 2015 to 2021. The second goal of the paper is to connect the investments in securities with the informal monetary policy goals of the CNB (exchange rate targeting) and the formal goals of the BS and ECB (inflation targeting). While the central banks of the Eurosystem responded to the economic crisis after 2009 and the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 with so-called non-standard measures, which included the purchase of securities of euro area residents in order to maintain economic growth, the CNB regularly avoided non-standard measures (except for the first half of 2020) and open market policy, prioritizing a stable exchange rate, where economic growth was a secondary goal. The results of the analysis show that the CNB needs yet to adjust its asset structure and invest in securities, while in the case of the BS and ECB, it was difficult to link investment in securities as part of an investment programme with inflation rates or growth at individual levels of GDP. It is clear that small individual shares of the BS and the ECB in the big, consolidated Eurosystem, dominated by the central banks of Germany, France, Spain and Italy, do not share the same statistical relation to the proclaimed objectives of securities purchase, such as economic growth, employment or inflation.
Keywords
Eurosystem; CNB; BS; ECB; balance sheet structure; securities
Hrčak ID:
294120
URI
Publication date:
30.12.2022.
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