The transmission of macroprudential policy in the tails: evidence from a narrative approach

Staff working papers set out research in progress by our staff, with the aim of encouraging comments and debate.
Published on 16 June 2023

Staff Working Paper No. 1,027

By Álvaro Fernández-Gallardo, Simon Lloyd and Ed Manuel

We estimate the causal effects of macroprudential policies on the entire distribution of GDP growth for advanced European economies using a narrative-identification strategy in a quantile-regression framework. While macroprudential policy has near-zero effects on the centre of the GDP-growth distribution, tighter policy brings benefits by reducing the variance of future growth, significantly boosting the left tail while simultaneously reducing the right. Assessing a range of channels through which these effects materialise, we find that macroprudential policy particularly operates through ‘credit-at-risk’: it reduces the right tail of future credit growth, dampening booms, in turn reducing the likelihood of extreme GDP-growth outturns.

This version was updated in June 2026.

The transmission of macroprudential policy in the tails: evidence from a narrative approach