Central bank balance sheets in emerging Asia have been expanding rapidly for the past decade, driven primarily by the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves. Some of the expansion reflects efforts to increase the buffer stock of reserves in the aftermath of the 1997–98 Asian Financial...

Reserve portfolios prior to the Global Financial Crisis provided positive (low) returns for central banks or had extremely low probabilities of earning negative returns. In the wake of the crisis, expansionary monetary policy created a low yield environment at a scale that was never seen before....

We study the cross-border impact of quantitative easing (QE) in the major advanced economies, especially on emerging market economies. We first examine the cross-border financial market impact of central bank announcements of asset purchase programmes. We find marked QE announcement effects on...

Emerging market economies (EMEs) have increased their reserves holdings primarily for self-insurance. The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has accumulated its foreign exchange (FX) reserves for the same reason, recognising the need to reduce external vulnerability. Both debt issuance and the...

The Israeli financial system withstood the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007–09 relatively well and came out unscathed. Notwithstanding this favourable outcome, Israel is a small open economy, which means that its domestic financial conditions cannot be disconnected from the consequences...

This paper discusses the scope for international macroprudential policy coordination in a financially integrated world economy. It first reviews the transmission channels associated with, and the empirical evidence on, financial spillovers and spillbacks - which have both increased in magnitude...

This book celebrates the life and work of Palle Schelde Andersen, a Danish economist who was for over two decades the main macroeconomist of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The book contains the papers and proceedings of a conference that was held at the BIS in Mr Andersen's honour...

This paper looks at the relevance of a central bank's own finances for its policy work. Some central banks are exposed to significant financial risks, partly due to the environment in which they operate, and partly due to the nature of policy actions. While financial exposures and losses do not...

Since 1981, monetary policy in Singapore has been centred on managing the trade-weighted nominal effective exchange rate, which has a powerful and predictable influence on domestic prices in a small, open economy. However, given Singapore’s exchange rate-based monetary policy framework and...

As a result of growing financial integration, domestic financial conditions are increasingly influenced by global financial conditions. This phenomenon has intensified after the advanced economies implemented their unconventional monetary policies, which have led to a surge in global liquidity....