What drives portfolio capital inflows into emerging market economies? The role of the Fed's and ECB's balance sheet policies

We provide an empirical investigation of the spillovers from the balance sheet policies conducted by the US Federal Reserve (the Fed) and the European Central Bank (the ECB) to gross portfolio capital flows to emerging market economies (EMEs). The analysis is based upon a panel dataset covering 28 EMEs throughout the period of 2009-2019. Our results show that balance sheet expansion by the Fed translates into higher portfolio capital inflows into EMEs. By contrast, portfolio capital flows to EMEs, including to European ones, do not seem to react to changes in the balance sheet conducted by the ECB.