The increase in the TARGET2 balance for the Bundesbank has led to a debate in Germany about the appropriate interpretation and policy response, if any. In this paper we review the evidence for the current account financing interpretation, and find it wanting in explaining the data in 2012. BIS...

Recurrent capital inflows pose important challenges for authorities in emerging market economies seeking to preserve financial stability. Raising interest rates to dampen imbalances that could arise from capital flows can also attract more capital inflows and accentuate appreciation pressures....

This paper examines from various angles foreign investors' daily transactions in six emerging Asian equity markets and their relationship with local market returns and exchange rate changes over the period 1999-2006. Confirming much of the literature, we find that equity market returns matter...

This study divides the world into currency zones according to the co-movement of each currency with the key currencies. The dollar zone groups economies that produce well over half of global GDP. The euro zone now includes almost all of Europe and some commodity producers, but remains less than...

This paper analyses the effects of sterilised, intraday foreign exchange market operations (non-discretionary and discretionary) on foreign exchange returns and volatility in four inflation targeting economies in Latin America. The distribution of exchange rates during intervention and...

We show that the FX impact of monetary policy has been growing significantly. We use a high-frequency event study of the joint response of fixed income instruments and exchange rates to monetary policy news from seven major central banks spanning 2004-2015. News affecting short maturity bonds...

The conventional view is that microeconomic reforms after the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis have greatly strengthened banking systems in Asia. Banks have become better capitalised, external exposures have been reduced and credit risk has been managed more effectively. But this conventional view...

This paper analyses the factors that govern the choice of the currency composition of official foreign exchange reserves. First, we introduce a new panel dataset on the key currencies in foreign exchange reserves of about 60 economies in the 1999-2017 period. Second, we show that the currency...

We analyse global and euro area imbalances by focusing on China and Germany as large surplus and creditor countries. In the 2000s, domestic reforms in both countries expanded the effective labour force, restrained wages, shifted income towards profits and increased corporate saving. As a result,...