FSRC - Financial System Research Center

• Losing Contact: The Impact of Contactless Payments on Cash Usage

  Staff Working Paper 2020-56 Marie-Hélène Felt

  Contactless payment cards are a competitive alternative to cash. Using Canadian panel data from 2010 to 2017, this study investigates whether contactless credit cards are an important contributor to the decline in the transactional use of cash. 

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial services JEL Code(s): C, C3, C33, D, D1, D12, E, E4, E41

• Strategic Uncertainty in Financial Markets: Evidence from a Consensus Pricing Service

  Staff Working Paper 2020-55 Lerby Ergun, Andreas Uthemann

  We look at the informational content of consensus pricing in opaque over-the-counter markets. We show that the availability of price data informs participants mainly about other participants’ valuations, rather than about the value of a financial security.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): C, C5, C58, D, D5, D53, D8, D83, G, G1, G12, G14
• November 27, 2020

  Financial Markets’ Response to COVID-19 Policy Interventions

  Policy-makers reacted to the COVID-19 crisis through a variety of channels. This Systemic Risk Centre conference, co-organized with the Bank of Canada, focused on how financial markets responded to these policy initiatives and asked what we have learned for future interventions.

  Content Type(s): Conferences and workshops

• On Causal Networks of Financial Firms: Structural Identification via Non-parametric Heteroskedasticity

  Staff Working Paper 2020-42 Ruben Hipp

  Banks’ business interactions create a network of relationships that are hidden in the correlations of bank stock returns. But for policy interventions, we need causality to understand how the network changes. Thus, this paper looks for the causal network anticipated by investors.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets, Financial stability JEL Code(s): C, C1, C3, C32, C5, C58, L, L1, L14

• Interbank Asset-Liability Networks with Fire Sale Management

  Staff Working Paper 2020-41 Zachary Feinstein, Grzegorz Halaj

  Raising liquidity when funding is stressed creates pressure on the financial market. Liquidating large quantities of assets depresses their prices and may amplify funding shocks. How do banks weathering a funding crisis contribute to contagion risk?

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C6, C62, C63, C7, C72, G, G0, G01, G1, G11

• The Interplay of Financial Education, Financial Literacy, Financial Inclusion and Financial Stability: Any Lessons for the Current Big Tech Era?

  Staff Working Paper 2020-32 Nicole Jonker, Anneke Kosse

  The objective of this paper is twofold. First, we assess whether financial education might be a suitable tool to promote the financial inclusion opportunities that big techs provide. Second, we study how this potential financial inclusion could impact financial stability.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Development economics, Digital currencies and fintech, Financial markets, Financial services, Financial stability JEL Code(s): D, D1, D14, D9, D91, D92, G, G2, G21, G23, O, O1, O16

• Maturity Composition and the Demand for Government Debt

  Staff Working Paper 2020-29 Jason Allen, Jakub Kastl, Milena Wittwer

  The main objectives of debt management are to raise stable and low-cost funding to meet the government’s financial needs and to maintain a well-functioning market for government securities.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Debt management, Financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C1, C14, D, D4, D44, E, E5, E58, G, G1, G12

• Why Fixed Costs Matter for Proof-of-Work Based Cryptocurrencies

  Staff Working Paper 2020-27 Rodney J. Garratt, Maarten van Oordt

  Can Bitcoin survive? Some say it will become vulnerable to attacks as the rewards for processing Bitcoin transactions continue to decline. The economics of fixed costs suggest the specialized hardware used to mine Bitcoin may be key to its survival.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): G, G1, G10, L, L1, L11

• Dynamic Competition in Negotiated Price Markets

  Staff Working Paper 2020-22 Jason Allen, Shaoteng Li

  Repeated interactions between borrowers and lenders create the possibility of dynamic pricing: lenders compete aggressively with low prices to attract new borrowers and then raise their prices once borrowers have made a commitment. We find such pricing patterns in the Canadian mortgage market.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G2, G21, L, L2

• The Term Structures of Loss and Gain Uncertainty

  Staff Working Paper 2020-19 Bruno Feunou, Ricardo Lopez Aliouchkin, Roméo Tedongap, Lai Xu

  We investigate the uncertainty around stock returns at different investment horizons. Since a return is either a loss or a gain, we categorize return uncertainty into two components—loss uncertainty and gain uncertainty. We then use these components to evaluate investment.

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