By last September, the debt of non-financial corporations had declined to below 70 per cent of GDP, more than 13 percentage points lower than its peak during the sovereign debt crisis. Higher capitalization levels and reduced reliance on bank borrowing mean that leverage (i.e.
smoothing out financial shocks, the design of the PEPP allows a high degree of flexibility in the composition of purchases, thereby ensuring the effective transmission of monetary policy across the euro area. More specifically, the monthly purchase volumes are not fixed but may vary over time depending on the prevailing financial conditions.