We study the effect of International Monetary Fund Article IV Public Information Notices on sovereign financing conditions. Using monthly data from 67 emerging market economies between 2004 and 2023, we estimate the causal impact of these surveillance disclosures through a dynamic panel matching framework that accounts for repeated observations. The release of Article IV statements leads to a statistically significant reduction in sovereign bond spreads and is associated with increased debt issuance and reserve accumulation, suggesting improved access to external finance. These effects are more pronounced when the surveillance message is optimistic and among countries more closely aligned geopolitically with major IMF shareholders, underscoring the importance of both tone and credibility context in shaping investor reactions. By isolating the influence of surveillance communications - independent of the Fund’s lending activities - this study contributes to the literature on the informational role of international organizations and the non-financial channels through which they affect sovereign risk and market behavior.
Mot(s) clé(s)
IMF Surveillance; Dynamic Panel Matching; Geopolitical Alignment; Sentiment Analysis; Sovereign Risk
2025-8
Monetary Policy and Life Insurance Profitability: Bancassurance's Edge in a Low-Yield World
This paper examines the effects of monetary policy on the profitability of life insurers during the prolonged low-interest-rate period, leveraging a novel dataset of 31 leading French insurers from 2009 to 2018. We classify insurers into three business models—bancassurers, traditional S.A insurers, and mutual insurers—and provide new evidence on the mechanisms driving performance differences. Bancassurers demonstrate consistently higher profitability levels and expanding market shares over the period. This advantage is driven by their ability to mitigate the "income channel" effect of low rates by rapidly reducing guaranteed yields offered to policyholders more effectively than their peers, thereby sustaining profitability and gaining market share throughout the low-yield environment. We also examine how insurers’ portfolio strategies shape profitability in this context. Specifically, we explore the "hunt-for-yield" effect by analyzing the impact of higher equity allocations compared to bonds, the shift toward greater reliance on unit-linked policies, and the role of capital adequacy structures. Our findings reveal substantial heterogeneity in how different types of insurers adapt to monetary policy, illustrating the diverse effects of prolonged monetary easing on non-bank financial intermediaries.
This paper examines the global spillovers of US monetary policy through the remittance channel. We use Jordà (2005) local projections to assess the effects of a US monetary policy tightening on 8 major remittance-sending countries and 41 recipient countries over the period from January 1997 to December 2017. Our findings reveal that such monetary tightening significantly impacts not only the US economy but also key remittance-sending nations, resulting in a global contractionary effect. The impact on recipient countries varies based on their reliance on remittances, underscoring the dual role of these personal transfers as both an amplifier and a mitigator of the global business cycle. Specifically, countries with high dependency on remittances experience heightened pro-cyclicality, leading to declines in both output and inflation, while those with moderate or low reliance exhibit counter-cyclical behavior.
Mot(s) clé(s)
Global spillovers, Remittances, US monetary policy
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