Emerging markets aren't really in charge of their own rates anymore: study

London

EMERGING market central banks are shackled to their US counterparts, with local long-term interest rates held hostage to the Federal Reserve and the monetary policies of other advanced economies.

That's the striking picture painted, in not so many words, by a new Bank for International Settlements (BIS) paper. The research throws into sharp relief how domestic monetary policy in a clutch of emerging markets has been rendered effectively impotent thanks to financial globalisation.

"Central banks in small economies have only a very limited ability to influence the long-term interest rate in their own currenc…