What shapes spillovers from US monetary policy shocks to emerging market economies?

This box studies the impact that the Federal Reserve’s tightening of monetary policy has on emerging market economies (EMEs) and analyses the factors shaping those spillovers. We use a local projections empirical framework to examine the ways in which EMEs’ macroeconomic and macro-financial variables respond to US monetary policy shocks identified at high frequency. In line with academic literature, our baseline results show that a surprise tightening of US monetary policy is associated with immediate tightening of EMEs’ financial conditions, after which industrial production and inflation decline, with that effect peaking after around 18 months. We find that heterogeneity across EMEs is shaped by macro-financial vulnerabilities and monetary policy actions at the national level: domestic macro-financial vulnerabilities clearly matter, amplifying EMEs’ sensitivity to US monetary policy shocks, while maintaining a prudent monetary policy stance helps EMEs to mitigate spillovers from US monetary policy. JEL Classification: C32, E52, E58