We assess the impact of the corporate sector purchase programme (CSPP), the corporate arm of the ECB's quantitative easing policy, in its first year of activity (June 2016 - May 2017). Focusing on the primary bond market, we find evidence of a significant impact of the CSPP on yield spreads, both directly on targeted bonds and indirectly via the portfolio rebalancing channel.
While spreads on eligible bonds have declined since the start of the programme (by 60 basis points in 2016), non-eligible bonds remained unaffected until 2017, when the entire corporate market recorded a further decline in spreads of 56 basis points.
