Instead, what we did observe was a broad increase in wealth levels across households between 2014 and 2017 on the back of strong economic growth. [31] Further evidence, including one slightly more recent study, similarly points to fairly stable inequality in recent years. [32] 4.2 Distributional effects of unconventional monetary policy The ﬁnding that wealth inequality in Germany has not changed substantially since 2014 is remarkable seeing as that time span covers a period of very loose monetary policy.
Given stubbornly low inﬂation, the Eurosystem also adopted unconventional measures, including large-scale purchases of ﬁnancial assets. Such measures have raised particular concerns about possible distributional effects. [33] Some fear that rich households could beneﬁt from such policies at the expense of less wealthy savers.