February 8, 2021
Posts
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Distributional Effects of Payment Card Pricing and Merchant Cost Pass-through in Canada and the United States
Although credit cards are more expensive for merchants to accept than cash or debit cards, merchants typically pass through their costs evenly to all customers. Along with consumer card rewards and banking fees, this creates cross-subsidies between payment methods. Because higher-income individuals tend to use credit cards more than those with lower incomes, our results indicate that these cross-subsidies might lead to regressive distributional effects. -
February 4, 2021
Monitoring payment deferrals during the COVID-19 pandemic—update, December 2020
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada’s financial institutions have allowed households to defer payments on a range of loans. We present updated details of debt payment deferrals by borrowers through to December 2020. -
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Estimating Policy Functions in Payments Systems Using Reinforcement Learning
We demonstrate the ability of reinforcement learning techniques to estimate the best-response functions of banks participating in high-value payments systems—a real-world strategic game of incomplete information. -
January 31, 2021
Research Update - January 2021
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. -
Eggs in One Basket: Security and Convenience of Digital Currencies
Digital currencies store balances in anonymous electronic addresses. This paper analyzes the trade-offs between the safety and convenience of aggregating balances in addresses, electronic wallets and banks. -
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(Optimal) Monetary Policy with and without Debt
How should policy be designed at high debt levels, when fiscal authorities have little room to adjust taxes? Assigning the monetary authority a role in achieving debt sustainability makes it less effective in stabilizing inflation and output. -
January 26, 2021
CFEC Releases Results of October 2020 Foreign Exchange Volume Survey
The Canadian Foreign Exchange Committee (CFEC) released today the results of its October 2020 semi-annual survey of foreign exchange volumes in Canada.