FSRC - Financial System Research Center

• What Explains the Recent Increase in Canadian Corporate Bond Spreads

  Staff Analytical Note 2017-2 Maxime Leboeuf, James Pinnington

  The spread between the yield of a corporate bond and the yield of a similar Government of Canada bond reflects compensation for possible default by the issuing firm and compensation for additional risks beyond default.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12

• The Costs of Point-of-Sale Payments in Canada

  Staff Discussion Paper 2017-4 Anneke Kosse, Heng Chen, Marie-Hélène Felt, Valéry Dongmo Jiongo, Kerry Nield, Angelika Welte

  Using data from our 2014 cost-of-payments survey, we calculate resource costs for cash, debit cards and credit cards. For each payment method, we examine the total cost incurred by consumers, retailers, financial institutions and infrastructures, the Royal Canadian Mint and the Bank of Canada.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Financial institutions, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, D2, D23, D24, E, E4, E41, E42, G, G2, G21, L, L2

• Small‐Sample Tests for Stock Return Predictability with Possibly Non‐Stationary Regressors and GARCH‐Type Effects

  Staff Working Paper 2017-10 Sermin Gungor, Richard Luger

  We develop a simulation-based procedure to test for stock return predictability with multiple regressors. The process governing the regressors is left completely free and the test procedure remains valid in small samples even in the presence of non-normalities and GARCH-type effects in the stock returns.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C1, C12, C3, C32, G, G1, G14

• Adoption Costs of Financial Innovation: Evidence from Italian ATM Cards

  Staff Working Paper 2017-8 Kim Huynh, Philipp Schmidt-Dengler, Gregor W. Smith, Angelika Welte

  The discrete choice to adopt a financial innovation affects a household’s exposure to inflation and transactions costs. We model this adoption decision as being subject to an unobserved cost.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial services JEL Code(s): C, C3, C35, D, D1, D14, E, E4, E41

• Banking Regulation and Market Making

  Staff Working Paper 2017-7 David Cimon, Corey Garriott

  We model how securities dealers respond to regulations on leverage, position and liquidity such as those imposed by the Basel III framework. We show that while asset prices exhibit greater price impact, bid-ask spreads do not change and trading volumes may even increase.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14, G2, G20, L, L1, L10

• Optimal Capital Regulation

  Staff Working Paper 2017-6 Stéphane Moyen, Josef Schroth

  We study constrained-efficient bank capital regulation in a model with market-imposed equity requirements. Banks hold equity buffers to insure against sudden loss of access to funding. However, in the model, banks choose to only partially self-insure because equity is privately costly.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Financial institutions, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): E, E1, E13, E3, E32, E4, E44

• Canadian Bank Notes and Dominion Notes: Lessons for Digital Currencies

  Staff Working Paper 2017-5 Ben Fung, Scott Hendry, Warren E. Weber

  This paper studies the period in Canada when both private bank notes and government-issued notes (Dominion notes) were simultaneously in circulation. Because both of these notes shared many of the characteristics of today's digital currencies, the experience with these notes can be used to draw lessons about how digital currencies might perform.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Financial services JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, E42, E5, E58

• Stability and Efficiency in Decentralized Two‐Sided Markets with Weak Preferences

  Staff Working Paper 2017-4 Radoslav Raykov

  Many decentralized markets are able to attain a stable outcome despite the absence of a central authority (Roth and Vande Vate, 1990). A stable matching, however, need not be efficient if preferences are weak. This raises the question whether a decentralized market with weak preferences can attain Pareto efficiency in the absence of a central matchmaker.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models JEL Code(s): C, C7, C78, D, D6, D61

• Repo Market Functioning when the Interest Rate Is Low or Negative

  Staff Discussion Paper 2017-3 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, James Hately, Adrian Walton

  This paper investigates how a low or negative overnight interest rate might affect the Canadian repo markets. The main conclusion is that the repo market for general collateral will continue to function effectively.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Interest rates, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G1, G10, G12

• Terms-of-Trade and House Price Fluctuations: A Cross-Country Study

  Staff Working Paper 2017-1 Paul Corrigan

  Terms-of-trade shocks are known to be key drivers of business cycles in open economies. This paper argues that terms-of-trade shocks were also important for house price fluctuations in a panel of developed countries over the 1994–2015 period.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Housing, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, E, E3, E32, E5, E51, F, F3, F36, F4, F41