• monetary policy
• quantitative easing
• financialisation
• financial economics
• political economy
• Central bank
• monetary economics
• economic policy

Nine years have passed from the explosion of the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression, yet most European economies are stagnating if not sinking. Given the constraints on fiscal policies, the burden of restoring growth and employment has shifted from governments to the European Central Bank, which at first implemented a loose monetary policy by lowering short-term interest rates. Once the zero lower bound was attained, the ECB decided to purchase government securities and private bonds. The effects of such unconventional measures on investment, inflation and employment is what this Master's dissertation will assess. Post-keynesian economics will provide the main theoretical reference to better understand how central banks operate in a developed credit-based economy and how the economic environment is supposed to react. The mainstream view will be challenged by arguing that unconventional monetary policies such as the Quantitative Easing have no significant effects in increasing aggregate demand. It will be showed that asset purchasing programmes lead to perverse outcomes consisting in increasing financial instability via the substitution of safe with risky assets. At last, this encourages corporations in exploiting carry trade opportunities and accelerates the already worrisome dominance of the financial sector.