Staff working papers

• Do Oil Price Increases Cause Higher Food Prices?

  Staff Working Paper 2013-52 Christiane Baumeister, Lutz Kilian

  U.S. retail food price increases in recent years may seem large in nominal terms, but after adjusting for inflation have been quite modest even after the change in U.S. biofuel policies in 2006. In contrast, increases in the real prices of corn, soybeans, wheat and rice received by U.S. farmers have been more substantial and can be linked in part to increases in the real price of oil.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, Q, Q1, Q11, Q4, Q42, Q43

• Regime Switches in the Risk-Return Trade-Off

  Staff Working Paper 2013-51 Eric Ghysels, Pierre Guérin, Massimiliano Marcellino

  This paper deals with the estimation of the risk-return trade-off. We use a MIDAS model for the conditional variance and allow for possible switches in the risk-return relation through a Markov-switching specification.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G10, G12

• Funding Advantage and Market Discipline in the Canadian Banking Sector

  Staff Working Paper 2013-50 Mehdi Beyhaghi, Chris D'Souza, Gordon S. Roberts

  We employ a comprehensive data set and a variety of methods to provide evidence on the magnitude of large banks’ funding advantage in Canada, and on the extent to which market discipline exists across different securities issued by the Canadian banks.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Interest rates JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G2, G21, G28, G3, G32, G33

• A Distributional Approach to Realized Volatility

  Staff Working Paper 2013-49 Selma Chaker, Nour Meddahi

  This paper proposes new measures of the integrated variance, measures which use high-frequency bid-ask spreads and quoted depths. The traditional approach assumes that the mid-quote is a good measure of frictionless price.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C1, C14, C5, C51, C58

• Volatility Forecasting when the Noise Variance Is Time-Varying

  Staff Working Paper 2013-48 Selma Chaker, Nour Meddahi

  This paper explores the volatility forecasting implications of a model in which the friction in high-frequency prices is related to the true underlying volatility. The contribution of this paper is to propose a framework under which the realized variance may improve volatility forecasting if the noise variance is related to the true return volatility.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C1, C14, C5, C51, C58

• CoMargin

  Staff Working Paper 2013-47 Jorge Cruz Lopez, Jeffrey H. Harris, Christophe Hurlin, Christophe Pérignon

  We present CoMargin, a new methodology to estimate collateral requirements for central counterparties (CCPs) in derivatives markets. CoMargin depends on both the tail risk of a given market participant and its interdependence with other participants.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial stability JEL Code(s): G, G1, G13

• Heterogeneous Returns to U.S. College Selectivity and the Value of Graduate Degree Attainment

  Staff Working Paper 2013-46 Mai Seki

  Existing studies on the returns to college selectivity have mixed results, mainly due to the difficulty of controlling for selection into more-selective colleges based on unobserved ability.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Labour markets JEL Code(s): C, C3, C30, I, I2, I21

• Expansion of Higher Education, Employment and Wages: Evidence from the Russian Transition

  Staff Working Paper 2013-45 Natalia Kyui

  This paper analyzes the effects of an educational system expansion on labour market outcomes, drawing upon a 15-year natural experiment in the Russian Federation. Regional increases in student intake capacities in Russian universities, a result of educational reforms, provide a plausibly exogenous variation in access to higher education.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Development economics, Labour markets JEL Code(s): I, I2, I20, J, J2, J24

• Expectations and Monetary Policy: Experimental Evidence

  Staff Working Paper 2013-44 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Luba Petersen

  The effectiveness of monetary policy depends, to a large extent, on market expectations of its future actions. In a standard New Keynesian business-cycle model with rational expectations, systematic monetary policy reduces the variance of inflation and the output gap by at least two-thirds.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary policy implementation, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): C, C9, D, D8, D84, E, E3, E5, E52

• Perceived Inflation Persistence

  Staff Working Paper 2013-43 Monica Jain

  The Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) has had vast influence on research related to better understanding expectation formation and the behaviour of macroeconomic agents. Inflation expectations, in particular, have received a great deal of attention, since they play a crucial role in determining real interest rates, the expectations-augmented Phillips curve and monetary policy.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E37