During the past decade, domestic government bond markets in EMEs have developed further. Market depth has increased, maturities have lengthened and the investor base has generally broadened, although the degree of progress has varied across countries and several deficiencies remain. The...

Over the past three years, cross-border inflows into emerging market (EM) local currency bonds have surged. The returns on these bonds have moved more closely with those on international assets regarded as "safe", particularly following the euro area debt crisis. This paper first demonstrates...

Globally, financial institutions have increased their holdings of domestic sovereign debt, tightening the linkage between the health of the financial system and the level of sovereign debt, or the "financial sector-sovereign nexus," during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In South Africa, the...

Does the South African rand's relatively large volatility affect inflation? To shed some light on this question, a standard estimation technique of exchange rate pass-through to inflation is extended to incorporate exchange rate volatility. Estimated results suggest that higher exchange rate...

This paper evaluates Namibia's competitiveness using several traditional indicators; it concludes that, while the real effective exchange rate (REER) is in equilibrium at present, suggesting no imminent need for concern, the country may wish to improve its competitiveness by increasing...

Following a brief review of the recent history of GDP-linked instruments, this paper proposes a set of tools to examine the quantitative properties of GDP-linked warrants. It argues that trigger conditions should be clearly identifiable and payment amounts easily calculable. Based on a design...