Staff research

• Does Outward Foreign Investment Matter for Canadian Productivity? Evidence from Greenfield Investments

  Staff Working Paper 2018-31 Naveen Rai, Lena Suchanek, Maria Bernier

  This paper seeks to understand how outward foreign direct investment (FDI) affects the productivity of Canadian firms. We estimate the impact of outward greenfield investment on measures of firm-level productivity using FDI data from roughly 2,000 Canadian firms and more than 4,000 outward FDI projects over the 2003–14 period.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Firm dynamics, Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D2, D24, F, F2, F21, F23

• The BoC-BoE Sovereign Default Database Revisited: What’s New in 2018?

  Staff Working Paper 2018-30 David Beers, Jamshid Mavalwalla

  Until recently, there have been few efforts to systematically measure and aggregate the nominal value of the different types of sovereign government debt in default. To help fill this gap, the Bank of Canada’s Credit Rating Assessment Group (CRAG) has developed a comprehensive database of sovereign defaults posted on the Bank of Canada’s website that now is updated in partnership with the Bank of England.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Debt management, Development economics, Financial stability, International financial markets JEL Code(s): F, F3, F34, G, G1, G10, G14, G15

• A Look Inside the Box: Combining Aggregate and Marginal Distributions to Identify Joint Distributions

  Staff Working Paper 2018-29 Marie-Hélène Felt

  This paper proposes a method for estimating the joint distribution of two or more variables when only their marginal distributions and the distribution of their aggregates are observed. Nonparametric identification is achieved by modelling dependence using a latent common-factor structure.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C1, C14, D, D1, D14, E, E4, E41

• Bitcoin Awareness and Usage in Canada: An Update

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-23 Christopher Henry, Kim Huynh, Gradon Nicholls

  The results of our 2017 Bitcoin Omnibus Survey (December 12 to 15, 2017) when compared with those from 2016 show that Bitcoin “awareness” increased from 64 to 85 per cent, while ownership increased from 2.9 to 5.0 per cent. Most Bitcoin purchasers are using the cryptocurrency as an investment and not as a means of payment for goods or services.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C1, C12, E, E4

• The Neutral Rate in Canada: 2018 Estimates

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-22 Xin Scott Chen, José Dorich

  The neutral nominal policy rate serves as a benchmark for assessing the degree of monetary stimulus and provides a medium- to long-run anchor for the policy rate. Since quantitative measures of the neutral rate are subject to considerable uncertainty, Bank staff rely on four different approaches to estimate the Canadian neutral rate.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Economic models, Interest rates, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E4, E40, E43, E5, E50, E52, E58, F, F4, F41

• Redemption Runs in Canadian Corporate Bond Funds?

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-21 Rohan Arora

  Mutual funds employ a host of tools to manage redemption run risk. However, our results suggest that Canadian corporate bond funds may be vulnerable to redemption runs, especially when they are less liquid and when market volatility is high.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G2, G23
• June 30, 2018

  Research Update - June 2018

  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.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Research newsletters

• Readability and the Bank of Canada

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-20 Alexandre Deslongchamps

  In this note, I assess the readability of Bank of Canada publications using a formula commonly used for this type of evaluation. I find that Bank publications are more difficult to read than the media articles and other content our target audiences likely consume. This suggests that more simple writing can help the Bank better meet its communication objectives.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Credibility, Monetary policy communications JEL Code(s): D, D8, D83

• Bootstrapping Mean Squared Errors of Robust Small-Area Estimators: Application to the Method-of-Payments Data

  Staff Working Paper 2018-28 Valéry Dongmo Jiongo, Pierre Nguimkeu

  This paper proposes a new bootstrap procedure for mean squared errors of robust small-area estimators. We formally prove the asymptotic validity of the proposed bootstrap method and examine its finite sample performance through Monte Carlo simulations.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C1, C13, C15, C8, C83, E, E4, E41

• Swedish Riksbank Notes and Enskilda Bank Notes: Lessons for Digital Currencies

  Staff Working Paper 2018-27 Ben Fung, Scott Hendry, Warren E. Weber

  This paper examines the experience of Sweden with government notes and private bank notes to determine how well the Swedish experience corresponds to that of Canada and the United States. Sweden is important to study because it has had government notes in circulation for more than 350 years, and it had government notes before private bank notes.

  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