The Impact of US Monetary Policy and Other External Shocks on the Hong Kong Economy

This chapter uses the factor-augmented vector autoregression framework to study the impact on the Hong Kong economy of the diverging monetary policies by the Fed, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the Bank of Japan (BoJ), as well as the slowdown of the Mainland economy. The empirical results show that shocks in US monetary policy rate mainly affect interest rate-sensitive sectors in Hong Kong and that monetary easing from the ECB and the BoJ somewhat offsets the impact of tightening of the Fed. Real variables such as real GDP growth and the unemployment rate are more sensitive to the economic slowdown in Mainland China. However, Hong Kong’s financial stability, particularly with regard to loan quality, banks’ capital and liquidity, is well maintained by macroprudential policies, suggesting that Hong Kong’s financial system is resilient to external shocks.

Spillovers of the United States’ Unconventional Monetary Policy to Emerging Asia

This chapter assesses the spillover effects of the United States’ unconventional monetary policy on the Asian credit market. With a focus on cross-border bank lending, it employs firm-level loan data with regard to the syndicated loan market and measures the international bank lending channel through changes in United States dollar-denominated loans extended to Asian borrowers. It finds that the growth of dollar credit in Asia increased substantially in response to quantitative easing in the US financial market. The results of this study confirm the existence of the bank lending channel in Asia and emphasize the role of credit flows in transmitting financial conditions. The chapter also provides new evidence of cross-border liquidity spillover in the syndicated loan market. It finds that the overall spillover effect was large but differed significantly in Asia by types of borrowing firms, financing purposes, and loan terms at different stages of the quantitative easing programmes.

Uncertainty about Federal Reserve Policy and its Transmission to Emerging Economies

It is well known that a tightening or easing of the United States’ monetary policy affects financial markets in emerging economies. This chapter argues that uncertainty about future monetary policy is a separate transmission channel. We focus on the taper tantrum episode in 2013, a period with an elevated uncertainty about monetary policy, and use a data set that contains 90,000 Twitter messages on Federal Reserve tapering. Based on this data set, we construct a new index about monetary policy uncertainty using a list of uncertainty keywords. An advantage of this index is that it reflects uncertainty about a specific policy decision. An estimated vector autoregression (VAR) shows that uncertainty shocks lead to a fall in asset prices and a depreciation of local currencies. We also discuss the policy implications of this uncertainty channel of monetary policy transmission.

Volatility Contagion across the Equity Markets of Developed and Emerging Market Economies

Using variance risk premiums (VRPs) nonparametrically calculated from equity markets in selected major developed economies and emerging market economies (EMEs) over 2007–15, this chapter documents the correlation of VRPs across markets, examining whether equity fund flows work as a path through which VRPs spill over globally. It finds that VRPs tend to spike up during market turmoil such as the peak of the global financial crisis and the European debt crisis; that all cross-equity market correlations of VRPs are positive, and that some economy pairs exhibit high levels of the correlation. In terms of volatility contagion, it finds that an increase in US VRPs significantly reduces equity fund flows to other developed economies, but not those to EMEs, following the global financial crisis. Two-stage least squares estimation results show that equity fund flows are a channel for spillover of US VRPs to VRPs in other developed economies.

Domestic and Cross-border Impact of US Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound

This is a chapter of the domestic impact as well as cross-border spillovers of US monetary policy at the zero lower bound (ZLB) to advanced and emerging economies. We estimate the empirical relevance of the various channels of international policy transmission with a global vector error correction macroeconometric model. To address the challenge of measuring the stance of monetary policy at the ZLB, we proxy it with a shadow federal funds rate, which captures the impact of central bank balance sheet policies. We find evidence that US monetary policy was effective in stimulating the US economy. For many of the other economies, the spillovers from the quantitative easing had sizeable and persistent impacts on output growth, inflation, and equity returns. The responses in the emerging economies were rather diverse. In terms of exchange rates, a number of emerging economy currencies faced strong appreciation pressures (e.g. Malaysian ringgit and Korean won).

Measuring Systemic Risk Contribution of International Mutual Funds

The global financial crisis of 2007–09 has increased the attention of policymakers and academics on the scale and operation of interconnected financial systems, especially on what has become known as ‘too big to fail’ in the global financial system, including both bank and nonbanks. In this chapter, we study the systemic risk of the mutual fund sector in the global financial system. More specifically, this chapter provides new evidence of systemic risk contribution in the international mutual fund sector from 2000 to 2011. The empirical analysis tracks the systemic risk of 10,570 mutual funds investing internationally. The main findings suggest that the systemic risk contributions of international mutual funds are more than proportional given the fund’s size. Policy implications are discussed in terms of practicality of regulation, macroprudential approach, and risk-taking behaviour of fund managers.

Spillover Effects of Japan’s Quantitative and Qualitative Easing on East Asian Economies

This chapter explores the spillover effects of Japan’s quantitative and qualitative easing (QQE) on East Asian economies. Under the new monetary policy regime, the Japanese yen depreciated substantially, raising concerns that it would have a regional beggar-thy-neighbour effect. It is thus important to see what effects the QQE had on neighbouring economies. Our empirical investigation of East Asian stock markets finds that they first reacted to the yen’s depreciation negatively, yet came to respond positively as the QQE progressed, implying that the QQE had a much smaller beggar-thy-neighbour effect than was originally feared. We show that the QQE benefited East Asian economies because the positive spillover effect of Japan’s stock market recovery dominated the beggar-thy-neighbour effect in the region.

Spillovers of United States and People’s Republic of China Shocks on Small Open Economies

This chapter examines the impact of certain external shocks originating from the United States (US) and People’s Republic of China (PRC) on Indonesia as a small open economy. The spillover effects of tapering off, an interest rate hike, exchange rate devaluation, and real gross domestic product (GDP) are analysed. Two versions of the global vector autoregression model are employed, which covers 33 countries and considers both financial and trade relations among countries. The results suggest that the main risk for Indonesia’s real GDP is a shock to the PRC’s real GDP, while a US interest rate hike is the greatest risk to Indonesia’s exchange rate depreciation in the short term, especially compared to the US tapering off. Moreover, the dominant transmission channel of US monetary tightening is through finance, dampening economic growth in small open economies.

Capital Flow Surges and Consequences

This chapter examines whether the source or the type of inflow of the capital inflow to emerging economies makes any difference to the consequences of the capital flow. Our results, based on a sample of 53 emerging markets over 1980–2013, show that when it comes to the source of the inflow, the macroeconomic and financial-stability consequences of flows driven by residents (asset flows) and nonresidents (liability flows) are broadly similar in economic terms. Formal statistical tests, however, suggest that liability flows are more prone to causing economic overheating and domestic credit expansion than asset flows. On the types of inflows, we find that compared to direct investment, portfolio debt and other investment flows are associated with larger macroeconomic imbalances and financial vulnerabilities. We conclude that policy should try to mitigate the untoward consequences of inflows, and shift their composition from risky to safer forms of liabilities.

The Role of Institutions and Macroprudential Policy in Managing Spillovers from Quantitative Easing Policies

This chapter explores the impact of advanced countries’ quantitative easing on emerging market economies (EMEs) and how macroprudential policy and good governance play a role in preventing potential financial vulnerabilities. We use confidential locational bank statistics data from the Bank for International Settlements to examine whether quantitative easing has caused an appreciation of EMEs’ currencies and how it has done so, and whether this has in turn boosted foreign-currency borrowing, thus making EMEs vulnerable to balance sheet and maturity mismatch problems. While focusing our analysis on East Asian economies, we compare them with Latin American economies, which were also major recipients of quantitative easing capital inflows. We find that government effectiveness plays an important role in curbing excessive borrowing when the exchange rate is overvalued.