Increased integration of financial markets has led to many tangible economic benefits in Asia and around the world; yet, greater financial globalization has also exposed emerging economies to the vagaries of international capital flows. Harnessing the benefits of financial globalization while mitigating the risks posed by procyclical financial flows is a major preoccupation that has required central bankers in Asia and around the world to extend their focus beyond price and exchange rate stability to include the stability and efficiency of the financial system. This expanded domain of concern for central bankers has brought new, often complex, policy challenges.
Since 2014, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research, University of Chicago Booth Business School, and National University of Singapore Business School have organised the Asian Monetary Policy Forum (AMPF) annually, bringing together prominent academics, policymakers and private sector economists to deliberate pressing monetary policy issues particularly relevant for Asian countries. The aim is to draw lessons from experience for the benefit of policymakers in the region and beyond. This volume includes selected AMPF speeches and commissioned papers from 2014 to 2020. Based on the latest academic research in economics and finance and written for a more general audience, the chapters cover a range of topics that have assumed central importance in the global monetary and financial system over the past twenty years. These include the efficacy of traditional monetary policy frameworks against the backdrop of synchronised global financial flows, the challenges presented by the US dollar dominance in the international trade and monetary systems, and the optimality of central banks’ use of a wider set of policy instruments within an integrated policy framework to attain price and financial stability.
