Rodrigo Vergara: Global liquidity, spillovers to emerging markets and policy responses Opening remarks by Mr Rodrigo Vergara, Governor of the Central Bank of Chile, at the XVII Annual Conference on “Central banking, analysis and economic policies” of the Central Bank of Chile, Santiago de Chile, 14 November 2013. *  *  *  I thank Claudio Raddatz, Luis Oscar Herrera, and Consuelo Edwards for helpful comments. Good morning. Welcome to the Central Bank of Chile’s Seventeenth Annual Conference on Central Banking, Analysis and Economic Policies. This year, our conference focuses on “Global Liquidity, Spillovers to Emerging Markets and Policy Responses”. You will probably agree with me that this is a very timely topic. The global financial crisis that started in 2008 prompted a quick and decisive reaction of monetary authorities around the world. The central banks of most countries soon slashed interest rates to boost their economies, and implemented various types of facilities to inject liquidity into troubled financial markets. However, while most emerging markets reversed some of these policies as their economies recovered, advanced economies have maintained historically low interest rates and engaged in unconventional policies that last to these days. I will discuss today some of the policy issues around these developments and share some thoughts about the pending research questions along the way. These years of global liquidity expansion have coincided with a surge in gross capital inflows into emerging markets, a real appreciation of their currencies, and an increase in the prices of their main commodities, stocks, and houses.
These trends have been particularly visible in Latin America. During 2012, annual gross capital inflows to the seven largest Latin American countries – as classified by the IMF – amounted to more than 250 billion dollars. Sovereign EMBI spreads shrank to around 150 basis points, and, with a few exceptions, stock market prices recovered or surpassed their pre‐crisis levels.1 After the large depreciation suffered at the peak of the crisis, the real exchange rates of these countries persistently appreciated, continuing with a trend coming from the mid‐2000s. House prices in the region also experienced high annual growth rates, in many cases reaching two‐ digit figures. Chile was no exception to these patterns, although they were a bit less pronounced than in the average emerging or Latin American country. Our real exchange rate appreciated by about 15 percent between the peak of the crisis and the end of 2012, real house prices grew about 20 percent between 2009 and 2012, and our current account moved from a surplus of 2 percent of GDP in the last quarter of 2009, to a deficit of 3.5 percent of GDP by the end of 2012. Sure enough, these patterns could be explained by pull factors. The faster recovery of growth rates in emerging markets, the quick rebound of their commodity prices after the crisis, and the sounder policies being implemented by several of them during the last decade could give reason to allocate more capital to this group of countries.