We investigate the motives inflation-targeting central banks in emerging markets may have for intervening in foreign exchange markets and evaluate the case for such interventions based on the existing literature. Our findings suggest that the rationale for interventions depends on initial conditions and country-specific circumstances. The case is strongest in the presence of large currency mismatches or underdeveloped markets. While interventions can have benefits in the short-term, sustained over time they could entrench unfavorable initial conditions, though more work is needed to establish this empirically. A first effort to measure the cost of interventions to the credibility of policy frameworks suggests that the negative impact may be smaller than often assumed—at least for the set of more sophisticated inflation-targeting emerging-market central banks considered here.

Has monetary policy in advanced economies been less effective since the global financial crisis because of deteriorating household balance sheets? This paper examines the question using household data from the United States. It compares the responsiveness of household consumption to monetary policy shocks in the pre-and post-crisis periods, relating changes in monetary transmission to changes in household indebtedness and liquidity. The results show that the responsiveness of household consumption has diminished since the crisis. However, household balance sheets are not the culprit. Households with higher debt levels and lower shares of liquid assets are the most responsive to monetary policy, and the share of these households in the population grew. Other factors, such as economic uncertainty, appear to have played a bigger role in the decline of households' responsiveness to monetary policy.

Demographics and Interest Rates in Asia by Serkan Arslanalp, Jaewoo Lee and Umang Rawat IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

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