Resource utilisation, or “slack”, is widely held to be an important determinant of inflation dynamics. As the world has become more globalised in recent decades, some have argued that the relevant concept of slack should be global rather than domestic (the “global slack hypothesis”)....

The paper uses disaggregated price data to determine whether the higher moments of the distribution of relative price changes provide information on the adjustments and persistence of aggregate price conditions in the Philippines. It takes into account the changes that occurred in relative price...

Globalisation has contributed positively to the global economy in terms of economic growth and welfare. However, especially amid rising global interdependence, closer synchronisation of business and financial cycles and stronger linkages across monetary, macroprudential and fiscal policies, as...

This paper assesses the determinants of foreign exchange (FX) reserves in emerging market economies (EMEs). First, it reviews the drivers behind reserve accumulation and the metrics used to evaluate reserve adequacy. We argue that precautionary motives, at least until early 2000s, were the main...

Central bank balance sheets in emerging Asia have been expanding rapidly for the past decade, driven primarily by the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves. Some of the expansion reflects efforts to increase the buffer stock of reserves in the aftermath of the 1997–98 Asian Financial...

Reserve portfolios prior to the Global Financial Crisis provided positive (low) returns for central banks or had extremely low probabilities of earning negative returns. In the wake of the crisis, expansionary monetary policy created a low yield environment at a scale that was never seen before....

This paper discusses the scope for international macroprudential policy coordination in a financially integrated world economy. It first reviews the transmission channels associated with, and the empirical evidence on, financial spillovers and spillbacks - which have both increased in magnitude...

The size of gross external portfolio holdings has among many countries increased substantially over the recent past. Over the same period the volatility of inflation has declined in most countries. Many previous papers argue that financial globalisation has led to improved policy-making and...

In the face of the recent financial crisis, central banks have varied the size and structure of their balance sheets. Such actions attempt to exploit additional instruments of central bank policy that go beyond the traditional monetary policy instrument (ie control over the shortterm interest...

The composition of public debt by maturity is irrelevant in the standard New Keynesian model of monetary policy. Nevertheless, central banks have, since the outset of the crisis, purchased large amounts of government bonds in the attempt to support economic activity and stem deflationary...