Staff working papers

• On What States Do Prices Depend? Answers from Ecuador

  Staff Working Paper 2016-43 Craig Benedict, Mario J. Crucini, Anthony Landry

  In this paper, we argue that differences in the cost structures across sectors play an important role in firms’ decisions to adjust their prices. We develop a menu-cost model of pricing in which retail firms intermediate trade between producers and consumers.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E3, E5, F, F3, F33

• On the Value of Virtual Currencies

  Staff Working Paper 2016-42 Wilko Bolt, Maarten van Oordt

  This paper develops an economic framework to analyze the exchange rate of virtual currency. Three components are important: first, the current use of virtual currency to make payments; second, the decision of forward-looking investors to buy virtual currency (thereby effectively regulating its supply); and third, the elements that jointly drive future consumer adoption and merchant acceptance of virtual currency.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Digital currencies and fintech, Exchange rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, E5, E51, F, F3, F31, G, G1

• The Impact of Macroprudential Housing Finance Tools in Canada: 2005–10

  Staff Working Paper 2016-41 Jason Allen, Timothy Grieder, Brian Peterson, Tom Roberts

  This paper combines loan-level administrative data with household-level survey data to analyze the impact of recent macroprudential policy changes in Canada using a microsimulation model of mortgage demand of first-time homebuyers.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): C, C6, C63, D, D1, D14, G, G2, G28

• Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in Canada: Evidence from Micro- Level Data

  Staff Working Paper 2016-40 Dany Brouillette, Olena Kostyshyna, Natalia Kyui

  We assess the importance of downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) in Canada using both firm- and worker-level microdata. In particular, we analyze employer-level administrative data from the Major Wage Settlements (MWS) and household-based survey data from the Survey of Labour Income Dynamics (SLID).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, J, J3, J30

• Are Counterparty Arrangements in Reinsurance a Threat to Financial Stability?

  Staff Working Paper 2016-39 Matt Davison, Darrell Leadbetter, Bin Lu, Jane Voll

  Interconnectedness among insurers and reinsurers at a global level is not well understood and may pose a significant risk to the sector, with implications for the macroeconomy. Models of the complex interactions among reinsurers and with other participants in the financial system and the real economy are at a very early stage of development.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): C, C6, C63, G, G1, G10, G15, G18, G2, G22, G28

• The Global Financial Cycle, Monetary Policies and Macroprudential Regulations in Small, Open Economies

  Staff Working Paper 2016-38 Gregory Bauer, Gurnain Pasricha, Rodrigo Sekkel, Yaz Terajima

  This paper analyzes the implications of the global financial cycle for conventional and unconventional monetary policies and macroprudential policy in small, open economies such as Canada. The paper starts by summarizing recent work on financial cycles and their growing correlation across borders.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Housing, International financial markets, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, E43, E44, E5, E52, F, F4, F41

• Starting from a Blank Page? Semantic Similarity in Central Bank Communication and Market Volatility

  Staff Working Paper 2016-37 Michael Ehrmann, Jonathan Talmi

  Press releases announcing and explaining monetary policy decisions play a critical role in the communication strategy of central banks. Because of their market-moving potential, it is particularly important how they are drafted. Often, central banks start from the previous statement and update the earlier text with only small changes.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Central bank research, Financial markets, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E5, E52, E58

• Output Comovement and Inflation Dynamics in a Two-Sector Model with Durable Goods: The Role of Sticky Information and Heterogeneous Factor Markets

  Staff Working Paper 2016-36 Tomiyuki Kitamura, Tamon Takamura

  In a simple two-sector New Keynesian model, sticky prices generate a counterfactual negative comovement between the output of durable and nondurable goods following a monetary policy shock. We show that heterogeneous factor markets allow any combination of strictly positive price stickiness to generate positive output comovement.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32, E5, E52

• Time-Varying Crash Risk: The Role of Stock Market Liquidity

  Staff Working Paper 2016-35 Peter Christoffersen, Bruno Feunou, Yoontae Jeon, Chayawat Ornthanalai

  We estimate a continuous-time model with stochastic volatility and dynamic crash probability for the S&P 500 index and find that market illiquidity dominates other factors in explaining the stock market crash risk. While the crash probability is time-varying, its dynamic depends only weakly on return variance once we include market illiquidity as an economic variable in the model.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G1, G12

• International Banking and Cross-Border Effects of Regulation: Lessons from Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2016-34 H. Evren Damar, Adi Mordel

  We study how changes in prudential requirements affect cross-border lending of Canadian banks by utilizing an index that aggregates adjustments in key regulatory instruments across jurisdictions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): F, F3, F34, G, G0, G01, G2, G21