Lessons from recent experiences on exchange rates, capital flows and financial conditions in EMEs

Key takeaways

• Currency appreciation in emerging market economies (EMEs) has gone hand in hand with greater risk-taking, higher capital flows and more accommodative financial conditions, against the backdrop of the increasing share of foreign investment in local currency assets in EMEs' external financing since 2007.
• The historically positive correlation between US dollar strength against EME currencies and EME sovereign bond spreads over US Treasuries up to 2021 continued in Latin America but reversed in emerging Asia in 2022–23.
• Such a divergence reflects a range of policy responses by EME central banks in the face of the unprecedented combination of shocks in 2022. In particular, central banks in emerging Asia intervened more actively in FX markets and relied less on monetary policy tightening than those in Latin America.