U.S. unconventional monetary policy and fragility in emerging market debt funds

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the sensitivity of emerging market debt mutual fund flows to U.S. unconventional monetary policies after the global financial crisis. First, I find that fund flows were affected by large-scale asset purchase announcements made by the Federal Reserve during 2008-2014. Additionally, outflows of emerging market debt funds are more sensitive to bad performance than their inflows are sensitive to good performance, i.e., they exhibit a concave flow-to-performance relation. However, the relation changes during Quantitative Easing, which may increase asset managers’ incentives to reach for yield. In contrast, the sensitivity of bad performance strengthens when the policy is lifted. These results point to the possibility of fragility in emerging market debt funds.