Staff working papers

• Trade and Market Power in Product and Labor Markets

  Staff Working Paper 2021-17 Gaelan MacKenzie

  Trade liberalizations increase the sales and input purchases of productive firms relative to their less productive domestic competitors. This reallocation affects firms’ market power in their product and input markets. I quantify how the labour market power of employers affects the distribution and size of the gains from trade.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Labour markets, Market structure and pricing, Productivity, Trade integration JEL Code(s): D, D4, D43, F, F1, F12, F6, J, L, L1, L13

• How Long is Forever in the Laboratory? Three Implementations of an Infinite-Horizon Monetary Economy

  Staff Working Paper 2021-16 Janet Hua Jiang, Daniela Puzzello, Cathy Zhang

  Standard monetary models adopt an infinite horizon with discounting. Testing these models in the lab requires implementing this horizon within a limited time frame. We compare three approaches to such an implementation and discuss their relative advantages.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Central bank research, Economic models, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): C, C9, C92, D, D8, D83, E, E4, E40

• Labor Demand Response to Labor Supply Incentives: Lessons from the German Mini-Job Reform

  Staff Working Paper 2021-15 Gabriela Galassi

  How do firms change their employment decisions when tax benefits for low-earning workers are expanded? Some firms increase employment overall, whereas others replace high-earning workers with low-earning workers, according to German linked employer-employee data.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Firm dynamics, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E6, E64, H, H2, H20, H24, H3, H32, I, I3, I38, J, J2, J23, J3, J38

• Secular Economic Changes and Bond Yields

  Staff Working Paper 2021-14 Bruno Feunou, Jean-Sébastien Fontaine

  We investigate the economic forces behind the secular decline in bond yields. Before the anchoring of inflation in the mid-1990s, nominal shocks drove inflation, output and bond yields. Afterward, the impacts of nominal shocks were much less significant.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Econometric and statistical methods, Interest rates, Monetary policy and uncertainty, Potential output JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, G, G1, G12

• Debt-Relief Programs and Money Left on the Table: Evidence from Canada's Response to COVID-19

  Staff Working Paper 2021-13 Jason Allen, Robert Clark, Shaoteng Li, Nicolas Vincent

  During the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadian financial institutions offered debt-relief programs to help borrowers cope with job losses and economic insecurity. We consider the low take-up rates for these programs and suggest that to be effective, such programs must be visible and easy to use.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Credit and credit aggregates, Debt management JEL Code(s): G, G3, G31, H, H5

• Imperfect Banking Competition and Macroeconomic Volatility: A DSGE Framework

  Staff Working Paper 2021-12 Jiaqi Li

  How do banks adjust their loan rate markup in response to macroeconomic shocks?

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Financial institutions, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E44, G, G2, G21, L, L1, L13

• A Generalized Endogenous Grid Method for Default Risk Models

  Staff Working Paper 2021-11 Youngsoo Jang, Soyoung Lee

  Models with default options are hard to solve. We propose an extension of the endogenous grid method that solves default risk models more efficiently and accurately.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Credit risk management JEL Code(s): C, C6, C63, E, E3, E37

• Monetary Policy Pass-Through with Central Bank Digital Currency

  Staff Working Paper 2021-10 Janet Hua Jiang, Yu Zhu

  Many central banks are considering issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). This would introduce a new policy tool—interest on CBDC. We investigate how this new tool would interact with traditional monetary policy tools, such as the interest on central bank reserves.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5, E50, E52

• Market Concentration and Uniform Pricing: Evidence from Bank Mergers

  Staff Working Paper 2021-9 João Granja, Nuno Paixão

  We show that US banks price deposits almost uniformly across their branches and that this pricing practice is more important than increases in local market concentration in explaining the deposit rate dynamics following bank mergers.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial system regulation and policies, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G2, G20, G21, G28, G3, G34, L, L1, L11

• Distributional Effects of Payment Card Pricing and Merchant Cost Pass-through in Canada and the United States

  Staff Working Paper 2021-8 Marie-Hélène Felt, Fumiko Hayashi, Joanna Stavins, Angelika Welte

  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.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Financial institutions, Financial services, Market structure and pricing, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, D2, D23, D3, D31, E, E4, E42, G, G2, G21, L, L8, L81