Joshua Aizenman, Hiro Ito Central banks throughout the world implemented an array of monetary policies to fight the COVID-19 crisis. In contrast to some advanced economies, in response to negative shocks in the past, emerging economy central banks tended to increase policy interest rates as sharp exchange rate depreciations and pass-through pushed inflation higher. 1 During the COVID crisis, however, central banks in many emerging economies reduced policy interest rates to close to an effective lower-bound (see Figure 1). They also provided substantial liquidity, especially to banks and to governments (Aguilar and Cantú 2020, Nuguer and Powell 2020). Central banks and governments worked together with the common objective of supporting economies.