摘要：We present a comparable set of results on the monetary transmission channels on firm
investment for the four largest countries of the euro area (Germany, France, Italy and
Spain). With particularly rich micro datasets for each country containing over 215,000
observations from 1985 to 1999, we explore what can be learned on the interest channel
and broad credit channel. For each of those countries we estimate neo-classical investment
relationships, explaining investment by its user cost, sales and cash flow. We find
investment to be sensitive to user cost changes in all those four countries. This implies an
operative interest channel in these euro area countries. We also find investment in all those
countries to be quite sensitive to cash flow movements. However we find that only in Italy
smaller firms react more to cash flow movements, implying that a broad credit channel
might not be as pervasive in all countries.
