D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics

• Indebtedness and the Household Financial Health: An Examination of the Canadian Debt Service Ratio Distribution

  Staff Working Paper 2008-46 Umar Faruqui

  The household debt-to-disposable income ratio in Canada increased from 110 per cent in 1999 to 127 per cent in 2007. This increase has raised questions about the ability of households to service their increased debt if faced with a negative economic or socio-economic shock.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Monetary and financial indicators JEL Code(s): D, D1, D11, D14, D3, D39

• A Survey and Risk Analysis of Selected Non-Bank Retail Payments Systems

  Staff Discussion Paper 2008-17 Nikil Chande

  Payment services offered by non-banks have flourished in recent years. The author provides an overview of the different kinds of non-bank retail payments schemes currently available in Canada, illustrating each by focusing on a specific example.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial services, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): D, D1, D14, G, G2, G20

• Market Structure and the Diffusion of E-Commerce: Evidence from the Retail Banking Industry

  Staff Working Paper 2008-32 Jason Allen, Robert Clark, Jean-François Houde

  This paper studies the role that market structure plays in affecting the diffusion of electronic banking. Electronic banking (and electronic commerce more generally) reduces the cost of performing many types of transactions for firms.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D1, D14, D4, G, G2, G21, L, L1

• Lines of Credit and Consumption Smoothing: The Choice between Credit Cards and Home Equity Lines of Credit

  Staff Working Paper 2005-18 Shubhasis Dey

  The author models the choice between credit cards and home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) within a framework where consumers hold lines of credit as instruments of consumption smoothing across state and time.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates JEL Code(s): D, D1, D8, D81

• The Usefulness of Consumer Confidence Indexes in the United States

  Staff Working Paper 2002-22 Brigitte Desroches, Marc-André Gosselin

  This paper assesses the usefulness of consumer confidence indexes in forecasting aggregate consumer spending in the United States.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Domestic demand and components, Economic models, International topics JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, E, E2, E21, E27

• Consumer Attitudes, Uncertainty, and Consumer Spending

  Staff Working Paper 1998-16 Denise Côté, Marianne Johnson

  This study examines the link between consumer expenditures and the Conference Board's Index of Consumer Attitudes, an index highly regarded for some time as a useful leading indicator of consumer expenditures. However, the theory that identifies why it may be useful in an analysis of consumption is less well established. To explore this question, we […]

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Domestic demand and components, Economic models JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, E, E2