Staff research

• Who Pays? CCP Resource Provision in the Post-Pittsburgh World

  Staff Discussion Paper 2017-17 Jorge Cruz Lopez, Mark Manning

  At the Pittsburgh Summit in 2009, G20 countries announced their commitment to clear all standardized over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives through central counterparties (CCPs). Since then, CCPs have become increasingly important and there has been an extensive program of regulatory enhancements to both them and OTC derivatives markets.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G2, G28

• Which Model to Forecast the Target Rate?

  Staff Working Paper 2017-60 Bruno Feunou, Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Jianjian Jin

  Specifications of the Federal Reserve target rate that have more realistic features mitigate in-sample over-fitting and are favored in the data.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43

• Credit Risk Transfer and Bank Insolvency Risk

  Staff Working Paper 2017-59 Maarten van Oordt

  The present paper shows that, everything else equal, some transactions to transfer portfolio credit risk to third-party investors increase the insolvency risk of banks. This is particularly likely if a bank sells the senior tranche and retains a sufficiently large first-loss position.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit risk management, Financial institutions, Financial stability JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, G28, G3, G32

• Variance Premium, Downside Risk and Expected Stock Returns

  Staff Working Paper 2017-58 Bruno Feunou, Ricardo Lopez Aliouchkin, Roméo Tedongap, Lai Xi

  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.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12

• Credit Crunches from Occasionally Binding Bank Borrowing Constraints

  Staff Working Paper 2017-57 Tom D. Holden, Paul Levine, Jonathan Swarbrick

  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.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credit and credit aggregates, Economic models, Financial markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E22, E3, E32, E5, E51, G, G2

• Recent Evolution of Canada’s Credit-to-GDP Gap: Measurement and Interpretation

  Staff Analytical Note 2017-25 Timothy Grieder, Dylan Hogg, Thibaut Duprey

  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.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credit and credit aggregates, Financial stability, Monetary and financial indicators, Recent economic and financial developments, Sectoral balance sheet JEL Code(s): D, D1, E, E3, E32, G, G0, G01, G1, G2, G21, G3, G30

• A Barometer of Canadian Financial System Vulnerabilities

  Staff Analytical Note 2017-24 Thibaut Duprey, Tom Roberts

  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.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability, Monetary and financial indicators JEL Code(s): C, C1, C14, C4, C40, D, D1, D14, E, E3, E32, E6, E66, F, F0, F01, G, G0, G01, G1, G15, G2, G21, H, H6, H63

• Bitcoin Awareness and Usage in Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2017-56 Christopher Henry, Kim Huynh, Gradon Nicholls

  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.

  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, C12, E, E4

• Risk-Neutral Moment-Based Estimation of Affine Option Pricing Models

  Staff Working Paper 2017-55 Bruno Feunou, Cédric Okou

  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.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12

• What Drives Episodes of Settlement Fails in the Government of Canada Bond Market?

  Staff Working Paper 2017-54 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, James Pinnington, Adrian Walton

  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.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, G, G1, G2, G21, L, L1