Five Facts about the Distributional Income Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks

We document five facts about the distributional income effects of monetary policy shocks using Swedish administrative individual-level data. (i) The effects of monetary policy shocks are U shaped over the income distribution—that is, expansionary shocks increase the incomes of high- and low-income individuals relative to middle-income individuals. (ii) The large effects in the bottom are accounted for by the labor-income response and (iii) those in the top by the capital-income response. (iv) The heterogeneity in the labor-income response is due to the earnings heterogeneity channel, whereas (v) that in the capital-income response is due to the income composition channel. (JEL D31, E32, E52, J31)