The impact of monetary policy on financial markets in small open economies : more or less effective during the global financial crisis?

This paper estimates the impact of monetary policy on exchange rates and stock markets for eight small open economies: Australia, Canada, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. On average across these countries, a one percentage point surprise rise in official interest rates leads to a 1% appreciation of the exchange rate and a 1% fall in stock market indices. The effect on exchange rates is notably weaker in the non-Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries with a managed float. For the OECD countries, there is no robust evidence of a change in the effect of policy during the global financial crisis. For the non-OECD countries, there is some evidence of a stronger effect of policy on stock markets during the crisis, although further research is needed to investigate whether this is a result of measurement issues.