Do Monetary Policy Rates Reach Borrowers? Evidence from Household and Firm Loans in 96 Countries

We harmonize survey data on interest rates paid by approximately 15,000 small and medium enterprises across 125 firm surveys and 285,000 households across 83 household surveys spanning developing and rich countries to study the relationship between monetary policy rates and borrowing costs faced by SMEs and households. Using within-country variation in policy rates over time, we find that pass-through to firm and household borrowing rates is stronger in richer countries than in poorer ones.