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

Abstract

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.