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Working Paper
How ETFs Amplify the Global Financial Cycle in Emerging Markets
This paper examines how the growth of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has affected the sensitivity of international capital flows to global financial conditions. Using data on individual emerging market funds worldwide, we employ a novel identification strategy that controls for unobservable time-varying economic conditions at the investment destination. We find that the sensitivity of flows to global financial conditions for equity (bond) ETFs is 2.5 (2.25) times higher than for equity (bond) mutual funds. We then show that our findings have macroeconomic implications. In countries where ETFs ...
Working Paper
The US, Economic News, and the Global Financial Cycle
We provide evidence for a causal link between the US economy and the global financial cycle. Using intraday data, we show that US macroeconomic news releases have large and significant effects on global risky asset prices. Stock price indexes of 27 countries, the VIX, and commodity prices all jump instantaneously upon news releases. The responses of stock indexes co-move across countries and are large - often comparable in size to the response of the S&P 500. Further, US macroeconomic news explains on average 23 percent of the quarterly variation in foreign stock markets. The joint behavior ...
Report
International Capital Flow Pressures and Global Factors
The risk sensitivity of international capital flow pressures is explored using a new Exchange Market Pressure index that combines pressures observed in exchange rate adjustments with model-based estimates of incipient pressures that are masked by foreign exchange interventions and policy rate adjustments. The sensitivity of capital flow pressures to risk sentiment, including for so-called safe-haven currencies, evolves over time, varies significantly across countries, and differs between normal times and extreme stress events. Across countries, risk sensitivities and safe-haven status are ...
Working Paper
To What Degree and through Which Channel Do Central Banks Other Than the Federal Reserve Cause Spillovers?
Spillovers play a crucial role in driving monetary policy around the world. The literature focuses predominantly on spillovers from the Federal Reserve. Less attention has been paid to spillovers from other central banks. I measure the degree to which 20 central banks cause spillovers. I show that central banks in medium- to high-income countries cause spillovers to medium- to long-term interest rates in similar countries through a bond-pricing channel. These effects are narrower than spillovers from the Federal Reserve, which also affect emerging markets, short-term interest rates, and other ...
Working Paper
The Transmission of International Monetary Policy Shocks on Firms' Expectations
Motivated by the dominant role of the US dollar, we explore how monetary policy (MP) shocks in the US can affect a small open economy through the expectation channel. We combine data from a panel survey of firms' expectations in Uruguay with granular information about firms' debt position and total imports on a monthly basis. We show that a contractionary MP shock in the US reduces firms' inflation and cost expectations in Uruguay. This result contrasts with the inflationary effect of this shock on the Uruguayan economy, suggesting uncertainty about the policy regime. We discuss the issues ...
Working Paper
Real Exchange Rates and the Global Financial Cycle
We study the effect of fluctuations in the global financial cycle on real exchange rates (RER). On average, a downturn in the global financial cycle leads to RER depreciation relative to the U.S. dollar. However, there is considerable heterogeneity in the RER responses among advanced, emerging and developing economies; between net creditor and net debtor countries; and over time. When decomposing RER changes into components reflecting the nominal exchange rates and inflation differentials, we again uncover substantial heterogeneity across countries and over time. RER adjustments in advanced ...
Working Paper
The Effect of the China Connect
We document the effect on Chinese firms of the Shanghai (Shenzhen)-Hong Kong Stock Connect. The Connect was an important capital account liberalization introduced in the mid-2010s. It created a channel for cross-border equity investments into a selected set of Chinese stocks while China's overall capital controls policy remained in place. Using a difference-in-difference approach, and with careful attention to sample selection issues, we find that mainland Chinese firm-level investment is negatively affected by contractionary U.S. monetary policy shocks and that firms in the Connect are more ...
Working Paper
A Theory of the Global Financial Cycle
We develop a theory to account for changes in prices of risky and safe assets and gross and net capital flows over the global financial cycle (GFC). The multi-country model features global risk-aversion shocks and heterogeneity of investors both within and across countries. Within-country heterogeneity is needed to account for the drop in gross capital flows during a negative GFC shock (higher global risk-aversion). Cross-country heterogeneity is needed to account for the differential vulnerability of countries to a negative GFC shock. The key vulnerability is associated with leverage. In ...
Working Paper
What Happens in China Does Not Stay in China
Spillovers from China to global financial markets have been found to be small owing to China's limited integration in the global financial system. In this paper, however, we provide evidence that China constitutes an important driver of the global financial cycle. We argue that because of China's importance for global consumption, stronger Chinese growth raises global growth prospects, inducing an increase in global risk sentiment and an expansion in global asset prices and global credit. Two contributions are key to this finding: (1) We construct a measure of China's credit impulse to ...
Working Paper
The Global Financial Cycle and Capital Flows During the COVID-19 Pandemic
We estimate the heterogeneous effect of the global financial cycle on exchange rates and cross-border capital flows during the COVID-19 pandemic, using weekly exchange rate and portfolio flow data for a panel of 59 advanced and emerging market economies. We begin by estimating a global financial cycle (GFC) index at the weekly frequency with data through the end of 2021, and observe an outsized decline in the index over a period of just four weeks during February and March 2020. We then estimate the country-specific sensitivities of exchange rates and capital flows to fluctuations in the GFC. ...