Staff research
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Variance Premium, Downside Risk and Expected Stock Returns
We decompose total variance into its bad and good components and measure the premia associated with their fluctuations using stock and option data from a large cross-section of firms. -
Credit Crunches from Occasionally Binding Bank Borrowing Constraints
We present a model in which banks and other financial intermediaries face both occasionally binding borrowing constraints and costs of equity issuance. Near the steady state, these intermediaries can raise equity finance at no cost through retained earnings. -
Recent Evolution of Canada’s Credit-to-GDP Gap: Measurement and Interpretation
Over the past several years, the Bank for International Settlements has noted that Canada’s credit-to-GDP gap has widened and is above thresholds indicating future banking stress. -
A Barometer of Canadian Financial System Vulnerabilities
This note presents a composite indicator of Canadian financial system vulnerabilities—the Vulnerabilities Barometer. It aims to complement the Bank of Canada’s vulnerabilities assessment by adding a quantitative and synthesized perspective to the more granular (distributional) analysis presented in the Financial System Review. -
Bitcoin Awareness and Usage in Canada
There has been tremendous discussion of Bitcoin, digital currencies and FinTech. However, there is limited empirical evidence of Bitcoin’s adoption and usage. We propose a methodology to collect a nationally representative sample using the Bitcoin Omnibus Survey (BTCOS) to track the ubiquity and usage of Bitcoin in Canada. -
Risk-Neutral Moment-Based Estimation of Affine Option Pricing Models
This paper provides a novel methodology for estimating option pricing models based on risk-neutral moments. We synthesize the distribution extracted from a panel of option prices and exploit linear relationships between risk-neutral cumulants and latent factors within the continuous time affine stochastic volatility framework. -
What Drives Episodes of Settlement Fails in the Government of Canada Bond Market?
We study settlement fails for trades in the Government of Canada bond market. We find that settlement fails do not occur independently. Using a novel and comprehensive dataset, we examine three drivers of fails. -
Do Liquidity Proxies Measure Liquidity in Canadian Bond Markets?
This analytical note evaluates the reliability of proxies for measuring liquidity in Canadian bond markets. We find that price-impact and bid-ask proxies paint a similar picture of evolving liquidity conditions to that obtained from richer measures of liquidity for benchmark Government of Canada bonds. -
Competing Currencies in the Laboratory
We investigate competition between two intrinsically worthless currencies as a result of decentralized interactions between human subjects. We design a laboratory experiment based on a simple two-country, two-currency search model to study factors that affect circulation patterns and equilibrium selection.