Volatile Capital Flows Research Articles

Impacts of Benchmark-Driven Investment on Volatility and Connectivity of Emerging Market Capital Flows

Recent research finds that benchmark-driven investment has increased markedly since the global financial crisis, a phenomenon that has arguably led to more volatile capital flows and increased vulnerability for emerging markets. We investigate how far this is true by examining the contribution of benchmark-driven investment to the volatility of foreign portfolio flows of emerging markets, focusing on equity flows, and the sensitivity of benchmark-driven investment to factors that tend to have an influence on the global economy or emerging markets. Interestingly, we find that benchmark-driven-investment-related flows are generally less volatile, thus having an effect of reducing, rather than increasing, the overall volatility of foreign portfolio flows. However, our results also show that they are more interconnected with each other due possibly to their higher sensitivity to global and emerging-market-related factors, supporting the notion that their rapid growth could make emerging markets more vulnerable in times of extreme market adversity, as sudden and simultaneous withdrawal of portfolio flows would potentially expose them to greater risks of external financing or balance of payment difficulties.

Взаємозв’язок фінансової відкритості та економічного зростання

The article summarizes current approaches to the theoretical substantiation of the effects of financial openness on emerging economies. The empirical data on the verifying financial openness effects, in particular the promotion of capital inflows into emerging economies and their productive development in the context of globalization processes, are analyzed. An attempt has been made to identify the influence of the interest rate factor on the direction of the redistribution of international capital flows. Generalized the patterns of the distribution of capital movement instruments depending on the level of development of financial institutions and signs of the capital flows' strong deformation impact on financial markets with underdeveloped institutional environment. As a result of the analysis, it was found that under the conditions of the new normality, characterized by an increase in the volume of free movement of volatile capital flows, an increase in the level of financial openness, contrary to theoretical provisions, does not directly cause the inflow of foreign capital. At the same time, attracting foreign capital on a free, unregulated basis has a limited impact on economic development and mainly finances only the existing, well-functioning, high-yield markets and industries. Contemporary realities and the approach to the evaluation of foreign direct investment as the most effective and less volatile instruments of attracting foreign capital do not correspond to the current state of things. In today's context, only a small part of the FDI arrive into the real sector, while the bulk of them are localized in high-yield segments of the financial markets and used for tax evasion. The lack of direct dependence of international capital flows on the spread of capital yields and the level of financial openness leads to the conclusion that, in addition to the classical factors, the drivers of foreign capital inflow include positive economic dynamics of the recipient country and presence of high-yield markets. At the same time, signs of sustainable economic growth or recession by themselves encourage capital inflow or outflow from the country. At the same time, the presence of a developed financial sector reduces the risks of instability and increases the investment component of financial openness. These conditions form an inverse relationship between macroeconomic dynamics, the level of development of the institutional environment and the change in the level of real financial openness of the economy.

Determinants of foreign portfolio flows to Indian debt market

Purpose The volatile nature of foreign portfolio flows, especially flows into debt market, has large implications on financial and macroeconomic stability in recipient countries. It is necessary to identify the main drivers of portfolio investments in bond market of developing economies to design effective policies to enhance resilience of the economy and help in managing capital flow volatility. The determinants of foreign portfolio investment to Indian equity market have been examined in literature, but flows to bond market remain unexplored. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to identify the possible determinants of foreign portfolio flows to Indian bond market both in the short and in the long run. Design/methodology/approach This study carries out a time series analysis by deploying autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration of monthly data of the period from January 2002 to December 2016 for the Indian economy. A mix of pull and push factors has been analysed in this study. Domestic growth, domestic stock market performance, interest rate differential, exchange rate, volatility in exchange rate, stock market returns in other emerging economies, foreign output growth and dummy variables to trace the external developments such as global financial crisis and unconventional monetary policies of advanced economies have been used as explanatory variables. Findings The dominant pull factor such as interest rate differential explains the dynamics of flows in Indian bond market. The relationship between capital movements and interest rate differentials is the most accepted paradigm in international finance (Haynes, 1988). Among other domestic factors are stock market performance, volatility in exchange rates and domestic growth rates which are found to be significant drivers of foreign portfolio bond flows to India. The study also confirmed that global conditions could induce a fast outflow of capital from India. Research limitations/implications The study concludes that both domestic factors and external factors are equally important in determining the foreign portfolio investments in the Indian debt market. Practical implications The empirical analysis conducted in this study suggests that direct and indirect measures can be taken to increase and stabilise foreign investments in the Indian bond market. Direct policy measures refer to those tools which are under the ambit of policymakers. Indirect measures comprise those tools that are not under the direct control of the fiscal and monetary authorities but require coordinated efforts of the government and private sector. In this context, strengthening of not only financial and economic but also administrative institutions will be necessary. Creditworthiness and policy credibility should be improved to address erratic foreign portfolio investment in debt market of India. Originality/value This study is an original research study. This study adds to the existing literature and is expected to guide policymakers on the specific aspect of the management of capital flows as it gets affected by changes in monetary and fiscal policies.

Restrictive policy impacts in emerging economies

The policy responses to capital flows in emerging markets are multiple. However, capital inflow controls, if applied sufficiently broadly, can buttress all other policies by limiting the volume of capital inflows and address balance sheet vulnerabilities. The study analyzes the effects of capital controls (CC) domestically and internationally. Applied to 24 emerging economies (EEs) from 2009 to 2016, a panel vector autoregression model using a quarter dataset provides further evidence on these effects. Domestically, the results show that following the 2008 financial crisis, strengthening CC may support policymakers’ actions to improve their macroeconomic policies. Unpredictably, there is no relationship founded between CC and international reserves accumulation. However, a combination of controls and reserves are needed to manage well the volatile capital flows. Internationally, restrictions on capital flows may cause spillovers between countries introducing controls and neighboring countries. These multilateral effects raise the challenge of optimal policy coordination.

Do FX Interventions Lead to Higher FX Debt? Evidence from Firm-Level Data

Central banks often buy or sell reserves---so called FX interventions (FXIs)---to dampen sharp exchange rate movements caused by volatile capital flows. At the same time, these interventions may entail unintended side effects. In this paper, we investigate whether FXIs incentivize firms to take on more unhedged FX debt, thereby increasing medium-term corporate vulnerabilities. Using a novel dataset with close to 5,000 nonfinancial firms across 19 emerging markets covering 2002--2017, we find that the firm-level share of FX debt rises following intensive use of FXIs, particularly for non-exporting firms in shallow financial markets with no FX debt to begin with. The magnitude of this effect is economically significant, with one standard deviation increase in FXI leading to an average 2 percentage points increase in the FX debt share. For reference, the median share of FX debt in the sample is zero.

Capital Flows at Risk

The volatility of capital flows to emerging markets continues to pose challenges to policymakers. In this paper, we propose a new framework to answer critical policy questions: What policies and policy frameworks are most effective in dampening sharp capital flow movements in response to global shocks? What are the near- versus medium-term trade-offs of different policies? We tackle these questions using a quantile regression framework to predict the entire future probability distribution of capital flows to emerging markets, based on current domestic structural characteristics, policies, and global financial conditions. This new approach allows policymakers to quantify capital flows risks and evaluate policy tools to mitigate them, thus building the foundation of a risk management framework for capital flows.

What Determines Capital Flow Dynamics for Russia

The paper studies the impact of external supply or “push” factors (global economic and financial indicators, oil prices, sanctions etc.) and internal demand or “pull” factors (actual and expected GDP growth rates, institutional indicators, openness indicators etc.) on private sector capital flow components (foreign direct, portfolio and other investments) and capital flow aggregates (gross capital inflow and outflow, net capital inflow) in the Russian case, based on regressions utilizing 1994–2018 quarterly data. Among the external factors, the VIX volatility index, the real effective exchange rate of the U.S. dollar and the sanction intensity index prove to be consistently significant. The impact of sanction shocks is found to weaken over time, probably reflecting adaptation to sanctions. Among the internal factors, only the expected GDP growth rates prove significant. In contrast to existing literature on emerging markets as a whole, no significant impact of the interest rate and GDP growth differentials (with respect to advanced economies) is established. It is demonstrated that the push factors account for the larger share of explained variance of gross capital inflow and outflow as well as net capital inflow. In addition, capital flow volatility indicators are analyzed, with positive correlations found for the VIX index, the U.S. interest rates, the oil price volatility, and the financial account openness index.

The Drivers, Implications and Outlook for China’s Shrinking Current Account Surplus

China’s current account surplus has declined significantly from its peak in 2008 and the external position in 2018 was in line with medium-term fundamentals and desirable policies. While cyclical factors and expansionary credit and fiscal policies contributed, the trend decline has been largely structural, driven by economic rebalancing from investment to consumption, appreciation of the real effective exchange rate (REER) towards equilibrium, increase in outbound tourism, and moderation in goods surplus reflecting market saturation and China’s faster growth compared with trading partners. Policies should focus on continued rebalancing and opening up to ensure excessive surpluses do not return, and to prepare the economy and the financial system to handle more volatile capital flows. From a global perspective, the decline in China’s surplus has lowered global imbalances, but with different impact across countries. The analysis is based on data as of July 2019.

Facing the Tides

This paper looks empirically at some economic effects of volatile exchange rates and financial conditions and examines policy responses for managing such volatility. It also sheds light on some economic costs that stem from volatile capital flows and exchange rates and analyzes how countries deploy their policy toolkits in response. The data-driven analysis should contribute to ongoing reflections about how to manage volatile capital flows and exchange rates both in Asian EMEs and more broadly.

Variance risk premium in a small open economy with volatile capital flows: The case of Korea

This paper extends the research on the variance risk premium by considering a small open economy with volatile capital flows—the Korean economy. The empirical analysis in this paper finds that as in the US, the variance risk premium in Korea has a predictive power for the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) 200 stock returns over one-month and three-month horizons, indicating that it reflects the level of risk aversion in the Korean economy. The short-term forecasting ability of the variance risk premium is comparable to that of other popular predictor variables, such as the dividend yield and output gap. Moreover, a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) analysis shows that the global liquidity sector is more important than the domestic macroeconomic sector in determining the variance risk premium. An increase in global liquidity significantly reduces both the variance risk premium and economic uncertainty.

The distortionary effects of sterilised reserve accumulation on domestic credit markets: Evidence from Uganda

Some small open Least Income Countries embarked on rapid accumulation of foreign reserves in the wake of volatile capital inflows. Foreign reserve accumulation is one way of managing volatile capital flows. However, rapid and persistent accumulation is not only costly, but potentially distort the domestic financial markets, especially when it is financed by sterilisation. This study investigates the potential distortions on commercial bank lending in Uganda. Our empirical results show that sterilised reserve purchases crowd-out bank lending. The crowding-out effect is persistent even when bank capitalisation and shifts in monetary policy regimes are controlled for, which raise important policy implications. The objective of sterilisation is to maintain the prevailing stance of monetary policy. However, when it alters the prevailing stance of monetary policy and consequently the direction of the impact of policy as the empirical result has shown, then sterilised reserve purchases violate the “impossible trinity” i.e. it weakens the monetary authority's control over domestic monetary conditions.

Impact of Exchange Rate Risk on the Volatility of Emerging Market Bond Fund Flows: Does Currency Denomination Matter?

This study examines the impact of exchange rate risk on EME bond fund flow volatility against the backdrop of considerable growth in local currency (LC) bond funds among emerging market economies (EMEs) over the past decade. We find that exchange rate volatility triggers a significantly larger increase in fund flow volatility of LC bond funds over hard currency (HC) bond funds in EMEs. This finding has two important policy implications. First, it may reflect a lack of tools for foreign investors to hedge against foreign exchange risk, thus forcing them to move their funds in and out of EMEs in times of volatile exchange rate movements. Second, more rapid growth of LC bond funds among EMEs in recent years means these economies are likely to experience more volatile capital flows than in the past. The implications point to the pressing need for EMEs to develop effective tools for foreign investors to manage their exchange rate risk and to deepen the domestic investor base to contain the impact of the exchange rate on fund flow volatility.

Twenty Years After the Financial Crisis in the Republic of Korea: The Development of Financial Markets, Policy Frameworks, and Institutions

This study reviews the evolution of financial markets, institutions, and policy frameworks in Korea since the 1997 Asian financial crisis and assesses their effectiveness in reducing the likelihood and adverse effects of future financial crises. The Korean experience in the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global financial crisis showed that the downside costs of financial globalization were magnified in the areas of the economy in which the external positions and financial system had weaknesses. Korea has continued to amend the structural weaknesses in its financial sector and strengthen its policy frameworks. Its financial stability will be greatly influenced by changes in household and corporate financial soundness as well as external risks due to volatile capital flows, while its improved financial system and policy framework are likely to help mitigate the likelihood and impact of future financial turmoil. The Korean experiences suggest that, amid rapid financial globalization and innovation, emerging economies must support financial stability by improving prudential financial regulation and supervision and building up more effective macroeconomic and financial policy frameworks to deal with volatile capital flows and asset price bubbles while supporting financial innovation and its regulation in a balanced manner.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE IMPLEMENTATION OF MONETARY AND MACROPRUDENTIAL POLICIES: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

AbstractThe emergence of macroprudential policies, implemented by central banks as a means of promoting financial stability, has raised many questions regarding the interaction between monetary and macroprudential policies. Given the limited number of studies available, this paper sheds light on this issue by providing a critical and systematic review of the literature. To this end, we divide the theoretical and empirical studies into two broad channels of borrowers – consisting of the cost of funds and the collateral constraint – and financial intermediaries – consisting of risk‐taking and payment systems. In spite of the existing ambiguity surrounding coordination issues between monetary and macroprudential policies, it is argued that monetary policy alone is not sufficient to maintain macroeconomic and financial stability. Hence, macroprudential policies are needed to supplement monetary. In addition, we find that the role of the exchange rate is critical in the implementation of monetary and macroprudential policies in emerging markets, while volatile capital flows pose another challenge. In so far as how the arrangement of monetary and macroprudential policies varies across countries, key theoretical and policy implications have been identified.

Bond risk premia in a small open economy with volatile capital flows: The case of Korea

This paper investigates bond risk premia embedded in Korean government bonds. Unlike the U.S., Korea is a small open economy characterized by highly volatile capital flows and non-reserve currency country. My empirical findings show that among alternative predictive variables (including the macro and global liquidity factors) for one-year-ahead excess bond returns, the global liquidity factors, extracted from the panel data set of various global liquidity variables, are the only predictors that perform well across both in- and out-of-sample forecast analysis. In a similar vein, the regression analysis for the determinants of the estimated bond risk premia (with both monthly and quarterly frequencies) reveals that similar to the case of U.S. bond market, the risk premia in Korean government bonds are affected by domestic expected inflation, but more importantly, that they are affected heavily by the global liquidity variables, such as VIX, bank capital flows and the leverage of global banks.

The Drivers, Implications and Outlook for China's Shrinking Current Account Surplus

China's current account surplus has declined significantly from its peak in 2008 and the external position in 2018 was in line with medium-term fundamentals and desirable policies. While cyclical factors and expansionary credit and fiscal policies contributed, the trend decline has been largely structural, driven by economic rebalancing from investment to consumption, appreciation of the real effective exchange rate (REER) towards equilibrium, increase in outbound tourism, and moderation in goods surplus reflecting market saturation and China's faster growth compared with trading partners. Policies should focus on continued rebalancing and opening up to ensure excessive surpluses do not return, and to prepare the economy and the financial system to handle more volatile capital flows. From a global perspective, the decline in China's surplus has lowered global imbalances, but with different impact across countries. The analysis is based on data as of July 2019.

The Natural Level of Capital Flows

We put forward a theory-based time-varying supply-side measure of the natural level of capital flows, KF*. Out-of-sample empirical features of KF* are impressive. For countries that have quarterly time series data of capital flows, we show that KF* is a level to which flows converge in the medium term; greatly improves our ability to model notoriously volatile capital flows; and performs well against out-of-sample and in-sample filtering techniques. The gap between actual inflows and KF* also helps predict both 6-quarters ahead sudden stop episodes and medium-term equity returns. We close with how KF* and lessons from the global financial crisis help us think about capital flows during the Covid-19 shock.

Capital flows in Montenegro: SVAR model

Analysing push and pull determinants of capital flows has become increasingly important with global financial crisis. Namely, global financial crisis has shown that large and volatile capital flows can pose risks, especially, for small and open economies. In this paper we are particularly interested to analyse the vulnerability of capital flows in country with limited monetary policy. We are focused on Montenegro, the country that unilaterally adopted euro in 2002 and regained independence in 2006. Since then, Montenegro has become very attractive for investments and has received significant amounts of foreign capital. Thus, in this paper we are assessing how global shocks could be dangerous for such a small open economy. In addition, we are interested in investigating whether domestic factors can influence capital flows due to the full euroization. In order to answer these questions, we have applied structural vector autoregressive model of the determinants of two main components of capital flows, foreign direct investments and portfolio investments separately, using quarterly data from 2005 to 2017. We provide evidence that mainly push factors, such as foreign output, interest rates and euro area risk sentiment, significantly explain the variation of capital flows. Furthermore, domestic factors are found to play little role for capital flow developments in Montenegro.

Índice de Calidad Financiera (ICF)

Una vez desencadenada la crisis económica que comenzó a mediados del año 2007, las autoridades financieras, así como los gobiernos de las principales economías del mundo desarrollado, comenzaron a enfatizar la importancia de anticipar y estimar los riesgos financieros sistémicos por sobre los riesgos de un determinado sector. Más allá de la solidez macroeconómica, los países estarán mejor preparados para convivir con la volatilidad potencial de las afluencias de capital si tienen mercados de renta variable de mayor calidad. Asimismo, la nueva directiva europea MIFID II (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) que entrará en vigor a partir de enero de 2018, se inspira en las premisas de la seguridad, eficacia y transparencia del mercado hacia los inversores. El actual trabajo pretende desarrollar un indicador que refuerce y mida la calidad del mercado español, en particular el de renta variable, mediante el desarrollo de un nuevo indicador llamado ICF (Índice de Calidad Financiera) que muestra, de una manera objetiva, el grado de madurez y estabilidad del mercado.

Rethinking and Moving Beyond GDP: A New Measure of Sarawak Economy Panorama

Despite the relatively strong adjustment in the global economy outlook, the Malaysian economy remains uncertain as the ringgit movement lies ambiguously ahead while volatile capital flows, inflationary pressure, and the vulnerable external sector and global trade remain intense. The Sarawak economy, which relies heavily on primary commodities and export earnings from oil-based industries, will soon face a noxious mixture of economic risks following the decrease in commodity prices. Thus, it is essential to develop a well-timed signaling mechanism to estimate the unpredictable economic forces that develop from the complex and multidimensional issues of domestic and global economies. The ideology of indicator construction from the Conference Board will be applied in this study to build a composite leading indicator, called the Sarawak Business Cycle Indicator (SBCI), to trace the cyclical movement of the aggregate economic activity in Sarawak. In this respect, the SBCI, which has demonstrated statistical significance with an average leading power of 3.5 months, is expected to be important in reflecting a notable economic outlook for the State. More importantly, the SBCI will serve as a valuable reference to act as a short-term forecasting tool to provide insight at both the national and state levels.