The redistributive effects of QE

The on-going debate about income and wealth inequality has recently hit the sphere of monetary policymaking: some analysts argued that the quantitative easing would benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, whereas some argued the contrary. This briefing paper reviews the arguments on both sides, while going back to the relationship between conventional monetary policy and income inequality. An empirical test on the Euro area shows that monetary policy has an impact on the unemployment rate, hours worked and the inflation rate. We interpret it as a positive, though relatively minor, effect of conventional and unconventional monetary policies on equality in the Euro area.