Staff research

• Electronic Money and Payments: Recent Developments and Issues

  Staff Discussion Paper 2014-2 Ben Fung, Miguel Molico, Gerald Stuber

  The authors review recent developments in retail payments in Canada and elsewhere, with a focus on e-money products, and assess their potential public policy implications.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Financial services, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, E42

• Canadian Non-Energy Exports: Past Performance and Future Prospects

  Staff Discussion Paper 2014-1 André Binette, Daniel de Munnik, Émilien Gouin-Bonenfant

  Canada has continued to lose market share in the United States since the Great Recession, beyond what our bilateral competitiveness measures (relative unit labour costs) would suggest.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Balance of payments and components, Exchange rates JEL Code(s): F, F1, F10, F14, F4, F43

• Uncertain Costs and Vertical Differentiation in an Insurance Duopoly

  Staff Working Paper 2014-14 Radoslav Raykov

  Classical oligopoly models predict that firms differentiate vertically as a way of softening price competition, but some metrics suggest very little quality differentiation in the U.S. auto insurance market.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, D43, D8, D81, G, G2, G22, L, L2, L22

• Bond Risk Premia and Gaussian Term Structure Models

  Staff Working Paper 2014-13 Bruno Feunou, Jean-Sébastien Fontaine

  Cochrane and Piazzesi (2005) show that (i) lagged forward rates improve the predictability of annual bond returns, adding to current forward rates, and that (ii) a Markovian model for monthly forward rates cannot generate the pattern of predictability in annual returns.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E47, G, G1, G12
• March 30, 2014

  Research Update - March 2014

  This monthly newsletter features the latest research publications by Bank of Canada economists including external publications and working papers published on the Bank of Canada’s website.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Research newsletters

• Do Sunspots Matter? Evidence from an Experimental Study of Bank Runs

  Staff Working Paper 2014-12 Jasmina Arifovic, Janet Hua Jiang

  A "sunspot" is a variable that has no direct impact on the economy’s fundamental condition, such as preferences, endowments or technologies, but may nonetheless affect economic outcomes through the expectations channel as a coordination device. This paper investigates how people react to sunspots in the context of a bank-run game in a controlled laboratory environment.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial stability JEL Code(s): C, C9, C91, C92, D, D8, D80, E, E5, E58, G, G2, G20

• Do High-Frequency Financial Data Help Forecast Oil Prices? The MIDAS Touch at Work

  Staff Working Paper 2014-11 Christiane Baumeister, Pierre Guérin, Lutz Kilian

  The substantial variation in the real price of oil since 2003 has renewed interest in the question of how to forecast monthly and quarterly oil prices. There also has been increased interest in the link between financial markets and oil markets, including the question of whether financial market information helps forecast the real price of oil in physical markets.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, G, G1, G14, Q, Q4, Q43

• Macroeconomic Experiences and Risk Taking of Euro Area Households

  Staff Working Paper 2014-10 Miguel Ampudia, Michael Ehrmann

  This paper studies to what extent the experiences of households shape their willingness to take financial risks. It follows the methodology of Malmendier and Nagel (2011) and applies it to a novel data set on household finances covering euro area households.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Sectoral balance sheet JEL Code(s): D, D0, D03, D1, D14, D8, D83, G, G1, G11

• Labor Market Participation, Unemployment and Monetary Policy

  Staff Working Paper 2014-9 Alessia Campolmi, Stefano Gnocchi

  We incorporate a participation decision in a standard New Keynesian model with matching frictions and show that treating the labor force as constant leads to incorrect evaluation of alternative policies.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Labour markets, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E3, E32, E5, E52

• Rollover Risk and the Maturity Transformation Function of Banks

  Staff Working Paper 2014-8 Teodora Paligorova, João Santos

  This paper shows that banks that rely heavily on short-term funding engage less in maturity transformation in an attempt to decrease their exposure to rollover risk. These banks shorten both the maturity of their portfolio of loans as well as the maturity of newly issued loans. We find that the loan yield curve becomes steeper with banks’ increasing use of short-term funding.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21