When the U.S. economy sneezes, do emerging markets catch a cold? We show that economic news, and not just monetary policy, in the United States affects financial conditions in emerging markets. News about U.S. employment has the strongest effects, followed by news about economic activity and...

As a heavily “dollarized” economy, large foreign currency mismatches exist between institutional sectors within Türkiye, as well as with non-residents. Combining several separate data sources, this working paper builds a picture of the aggregate FX exposure of the total economy. It explores...

Policymakers from the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region often flag a mispricing of their sovereign debt presumably originating from a perception risk by international investors that lead to "unjustifiably" high borrowing costs. Against this background, this paper explores the extent to which a...

In this paper, we develop a model incorporating the impact of financial inclusion to study the implications of introducing a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). CBDCs in developing countries (unlike in advanced countries) have the potential to bank large unbanked populations and boost...

This paper studies the role of an increase in foreign exchange reserves in reducing currency volatility for emerging market countries. The study employs a panel of 28 countries over the period 1986-2002. Several control variables are introduced in the regressions to account for other factors...

This study uses bivariate extremal dependence measures, based on the number of equity return co-exceedances in two markets, to quantify both negative and positive equity returns contagion in mature and emerging equity markets during the past decade. The results indicate (a) higher contagion for...

In this paper, we examine how the presence of country insurance schemes affects policymakers' incentives to undertake reforms. Such schemes (especially when made contingent on negative external shocks) are more likely to foster than to delay reform in crisis-prone volatile economies. The...

There is ample empirical evidence for developed economies that asset prices contain information about future economic developments. But is this also the case in transition economies? Using a panel of monthly data for the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, and Slovenia for the...

Are Bunds special? This paper estimates the 'Bund premium' as the difference in convenience yields between other sovereign safe assets and German government bonds adjusted for sovereign credit risk, liquidity and swap market frictions. A higher premium suggests less substitutability of sovereign...

We provide a theory of the limits to monetary policy independence in open economies arising from the interaction between capital flows and domestic collateral constraints. The key feature of our theory is the existence of an 'Expansionary Lower Bound' (ELB), defined as an interest rate threshold...