Staff research

• Short Changed? The Market's Reaction to the Short Sale Ban of 2008

  Staff Working Paper 2009-23 Louis Gagnon, Jonathan Witmer

  Do short sales restrictions have an impact on security prices? We address this question in the context of a natural experiment surrounding the short sale ban of 2008 using a comprehensive sample of Canadian stocks cross-listed in the U.S.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F3, F30, G, G0, G01, G1, G18, G2, G20

• Productivity, the Terms of Trade, and the Real Exchange Rate: The Balassa-Samuelson Hypothesis Revisited

  Staff Working Paper 2009-22 Ehsan U. Choudhri, Lawrence L. Schembri

  The paper examines how the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis is affected by a modern variation of the standard model that allows product differentiation (within the traded and nontraded goods sectors) with the number of firms determined exogenously or endogenously.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Productivity JEL Code(s): F, F3, F31, F4, F41

• A Financial Conditions Index for the United States

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-11 Kimberly Beaton, René Lalonde, Corinne Luu

  The financial crisis of 2007–09 has highlighted the importance of developments in financial conditions for real economic activity. The authors estimate the effect of current and past shocks to financial variables on U.S. GDP growth by constructing two growthbased financial conditions indexes (FCIs) that measure the contribution to quarterly (annualized) GDP growth from financial conditions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary and financial indicators, Monetary conditions index, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E44, E47, E5, E51