In early 2020, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Representative Office for the Americas contacted a group of nine central banks that includes the members of the Consultative Council of the Americas (CCA) except the US Federal Reserve (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia,...

In response to the COVID-19 shock, many central banks in emerging market economies have launched local currency bond purchase programmes to address bond market dislocations, signalling that they were willing to take the role of a buyer of last resort. Local currency bond yields fell...