D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics
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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. -
November 28, 2017
Analysis of Household Vulnerabilities Using Loan-Level Mortgage Data
This report examines detailed data on home mortgages to provide a better understanding of the vulnerabilities associated with the mortgage market. The proportion of low-ratio mortgages is growing, particularly in regions with strong house price growth. Moreover, these borrowers exhibit less flexibility to adverse shocks, since they have high debt levels relative to income and have taken mortgages with long amortization periods. -
Identification of Random Resource Shares in Collective Households Without Preference Similarity Restrictions
Resource shares, defined as the fraction of total household spending going to each person in a household, are important for assessing individual material well-being, inequality and poverty. They are difficult to identify because consumption is measured typically at the household level, and many goods are jointly consumed, so that individual-level consumption in multi-person households is not directly observed. -
The Costs of Point-of-Sale Payments in Canada
Using data from our 2014 cost-of-payments survey, we calculate resource costs for cash, debit cards and credit cards. For each payment method, we examine the total cost incurred by consumers, retailers, financial institutions and infrastructures, the Royal Canadian Mint and the Bank of Canada. -
Adoption Costs of Financial Innovation: Evidence from Italian ATM Cards
The discrete choice to adopt a financial innovation affects a household’s exposure to inflation and transactions costs. We model this adoption decision as being subject to an unobserved cost. -
Household Risk Assessment Model
Household debt can be an important source of vulnerability to the financial system. This technical report describes the Household Risk Assessment Model (HRAM) that has been developed at the Bank of Canada to stress test household balance sheets at the individual level. -
The Impact of Macroprudential Housing Finance Tools in Canada: 2005–10
This paper combines loan-level administrative data with household-level survey data to analyze the impact of recent macroprudential policy changes in Canada using a microsimulation model of mortgage demand of first-time homebuyers. -
Financial Inclusion—What’s it Worth?
The paper studies the determinants of being unbanked in the euro area and the United States as well as the effects of being unbanked on wealth accumulation. Based on household-level data from The Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey and the U.S. Survey of Consumer Finances, it first documents that there are, respectively, 3.6 per cent and 7.5 per cent of unbanked households in the two economies.