We investigate the effectiveness of the euro area’s single supervisory mechanism’s capital relief measures in response to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, in terms of large non-financial corporations’ lending outcomes. Using a granular borrower level dataset and controlling for the policies of other euro area authorities, bank characteristics and demand effects, we find that the lifting of the pillar 2 guidance (P2G) capital recommendation had a considerable statistically significant impact in supporting bank credit supply. The results are attributed to both, the capital made available and announcement effects. The latter are generated by the communication of supervisory plans and the fact the P2G was not designed to be ex ante “releasable”. The announcement of granted supervisory flexibility seems to have reduced uncertainty surrounding forthcoming regulatory responses in the beginning of the pandemic and acted as a de facto “supervisory forward guidance” in support of bank business decisions. Going forward we propose the creation of a formal supervisory forward guidance strategy, to complement the existing communication channels, to the benefit of banks’ and market participants’ decision making during both normal and crisis times. Our work therefore contributes to the literature threefold: (i) it introduces a novel granular supervisory dataset at the borrower level, (ii) it is one of the first papers to take a euro area supervisory perspective in analysing the effectiveness of capital relief measures at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, and (iii) it proposes a new supervisory policy instrument, the “supervisory forward guidance” with the goal of informing and steering banks’ and market participants’ expectations in order to prevent distress episodes.

我们从大型非金融企业的贷款结果方面调查了欧元区单一监管机制为应对冠状病毒大流行爆发而采取的资本救助措施的有效性。使用精细的借款人级别数据集并控制其他欧元区当局的政策、银行特征和需求影响，我们发现取消支柱 2 指导 (P2G) 资本建议对支持银行信贷供应具有相当大的统计显着影响。结果归因于可用资本和公告效应。后者是由于监管计划的沟通以及 P2G 并非设计为事前“可发布”的事实而产生的。授予监管灵活性的公告似乎减少了大流行开始时围绕即将到来的监管反应的不确定性，并充当了支持银行业务决策的事实上的“监管前瞻性指导”。展望未来，我们建议制定正式的监管前瞻性指导策略，以补充现有的沟通渠道，有利于银行和市场参与者在正常和危机时期的决策制定。因此，我们的工作对文献有三方面的贡献：（i）它在借款人层面引入了一个新颖的细粒度监管数据集，（ii）它是第一批从欧元区监管角度分析资本减免措施有效性的论文之一Covid-19大流行的开始，