Who gains most from ECB corporate bond purchases?

At this week’s press conference, Mario Draghi confirmed that the ECB’s corporate bond purchases will continue in “sizeable” quantities next year. The exact amount that it intends to buy is unclear, but we suspect that it will keep its corporate bond-buying broadly unchanged at around €7bn per month. We also think that the breakdown of the corporate purchases between countries will remain broadly unchanged. France has accounted for the largest share of purchases so far, reflecting its larger bond market. And since the ECB is still a very long way from hitting its private sector bond holding limits, this looks set to continue. Indeed, we estimate that the Bank could buy non-financial firms’ debt at the current pace until well into the 2020s.