We analyze the effect of the US Federal Reserve's monetary policy on EME sovereign and corporate bond markets by focusing on two dimensions: the evolution of the structure (size and currency composition) of the bond markets and their allocations within the bond portfolios of US investors. Global factors, particularly the level of long-term US Treasury yields, matter. Across all specifications, when US long-term interest rates were low (i) EMEs issued more sovereign and private-sector local currency bonds and more private-sector foreign currency bonds and (ii) US investment in EME sovereign bonds (both local currency and USD-denominated) increased. In contrast, after controlling for the level of US long-term interest rates, measures that attempt to isolate the effects of US unconventional monetary policy are often statistically insignificant in our analysis. Local factors matter too: The local currency government bond markets in countries with stronger regulatory quality/creditor rights are larger and attract relatively more US investment. Finally, consistent with Burger et al. (2017), we find that the well-known home bias phenomenon is at least in part a home currency bias: US investors exhibit no home bias against some countries' USD-denominated bonds, whereas for local currency bonds the familiar home bias is very present.
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