Who Waits? Why the Treasury That Lost Most Was Paid Every Year

Between 2022 and 2025 the Italian treasury lost more central-bank income than any other in the euro area, yet it was paid every year; the German and Dutch treasuries lost less and received nothing at all. This paper explains the paradox. A common monetary-policy shock reaches national treasuries through a filter with three stages: the central bank's balance sheet, its rule for distributing profit, and any layer of the system above it. Three propositions follow from one accounting identity. With one treasury, splitting a central bank into units, as in the Federal Reserve, brings receipts forward without changing their total. With several treasuries, as in the Eurosystem, it decides who waits: the pooling of monetary income shares the cost of excess liquidity, but not the spread between each sovereign's bond yields and the deposit facility rate. And a loss carried forward at the top withholds income from every unit below. How long a treasury waits therefore depends on its sovereign's yields and its central bank's payout rule; how much it loses depends on what it had been receiving. A projection calibrated to the 2025 accounts dates the resumption of German receipts between 2039 and 2044 and of Dutch receipts in the mid-to-late 2030s. A decomposition attributes the remaining shortfalls to national spreads and payout rules; in this calibration the ECB layer plays a minor part.