D4 - Market Structure and Pricing

• Consumer Credit Regulation and Lender Market Power

  Staff Working Paper 2024-36 Zachary Bethune, Joaquín Saldain, Eric R. Young

  We investigate the welfare consequences of consumer credit regulation in a dynamic, heterogeneous-agent model with endogenous lender market power. Lenders post credit offers and borrowers—some informed and others uninformed—apply for credit. We calibrate the model to match characteristics of the unsecured consumer credit market and use the calibrated model to evaluate interest rate ceilings.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Financial markets, Interest rates JEL Code(s): D, D1, D15, D4, D43, D6, D60, D8, D83, E, E2, E21, G, G5, G51

• CORRA: Explaining the rise in volumes and resulting upward pressure

  Staff Analytical Note 2024-21 Boran Plong, Neil Maru

  On May 27, 2024, the settlement period for trading GoC bonds in the secondary market in Canada moved from two days to one. This shortened time for settling secondary cash bond trades caused CORRA volumes to rise significantly, and they have remained elevated since. This combined with the skew in demand for funding has pressured CORRA higher. We find no indications that any other factors are contributing to the most recent pressures on CORRA.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial markets, Interest rates, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): D, D4, D5, D53, E, E4, E43, E44, E5, E52, G, G1, G12

• Entry and Exit in Treasury Auctions

  Staff Working Paper 2024-29 Jason Allen, Ali Hortaçsu, Eric Richert, Milena Wittwer

  This paper introduces and estimates a structural model of the Canadian primary market for government debt. We assess the role of dealer exit in this market as a key reason for increased, yet irregular, customer entry and quantify the benefits of greater customer competition against the costs of higher market volatility.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Debt management, Financial institutions, Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, D44, D47, G, G1, G12, G2, G28

• Could all-to-all trading improve liquidity in the Government of Canada bond market?

  Staff Analytical Note 2024-17 Jabir Sandhu, Rishi Vala

  We find that on any given day, nearly half of Government of Canada bond transactions by clients of dealers can be offset with other clients, including during the turmoil in March 2020. Our results show that under certain conditions clients could potentially trade directly with each other and are a step towards understanding the relevance of broader all-to-all trading in the Government of Canada bond market.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial stability, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, D47, D5, D53, G, G0, G01, G1, G12, G13, G14, G2, G21, G23

• How big is cash-futures basis trading in Canada’s government bond market?

  Staff Analytical Note 2024-16 Andreas Uthemann, Rishi Vala

  Cash-futures basis trading has grown alongside the Government of Canada bond futures market. We examine this growth over time in relation to Government of Canada bond and repurchase agreement markets and provide details on the type of market participants that engage in this type of trading activity.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial stability, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, D47, D5, D53, G, G1, G12, G2, G23

• Markups and Inflation in Oligopolistic Markets: Evidence from Wholesale Price Data

  Staff Working Paper 2024-20 Patrick Alexander, Lu Han, Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Ben Tomlin

  We study how the interaction of market power and nominal price rigidity influences inflation dynamics. We find that pass-through declines with price stickiness when markets are concentrated, which implies a lower slope of the New Keynesian Phillips curve.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Firm dynamics, Inflation and prices, Market structure and pricing, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): D, D4, D43, E, E3, E31, L, L1, L13, L8, L81

• Digital Payments in Firm Networks: Theory of Adoption and Quantum Algorithm

  Staff Working Paper 2024-17 Sofia Priazhkina, Samuel Palmer, Pablo Martín-Ramiro, Román Orús, Samuel Mugel, Vladimir Skavysh

  We build a network formation game of firms with trade flows to study the adoption and usage of a new digital currency as an alternative to correspondent banking.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Central bank research, Digital currencies and fintech, Digitalization, Economic models, Financial institutions, Payment clearing and settlement systems, Sectoral balance sheet JEL Code(s): C, C6, C7, C71, D, D4, D8, D85, G, L, L2, L22

• Liquidity risks at Canadian life insurance companies

  Staff Analytical Note 2024-7 Patrick Aldridge, Stephane Gignac, Rishi Vala, Adrian Walton

  We examine how life insurers manage liquidity risks created by their business model. We find that Canadian life insurers did not face significant liquidity draws and continued their usual investment behaviour during the COVID-19 crisis and as interest rates increased in 2022.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial stability, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, D47, D5, D53, G, G1, G12, G14, G2, G23

• What has been putting upward pressure on CORRA?

  Staff Analytical Note 2024-4 Boran Plong, Neil Maru

  From the autumn of 2023 into early 2024, the Canadian Overnight Repo Rate Average (CORRA), a measure of the cost of overnight general collateral Canadian dollar repos, was consistently well above the Bank’s target for the overnight rate. We find that, among several factors, long bond positions that require repo financing are the main driver of the recent upward pressure on CORRA.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial markets, Interest rates, Lender of last resort, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): D, D4, D5, D53, E, E4, E43, E44, E5, E52, G, G1, G12

• Intermediary Market Power and Capital Constraints

  Staff Working Paper 2023-51 Jason Allen, Milena Wittwer

  We examine how intermediary capitalization affects asset prices in a framework that allows for intermediary market power. We introduce a model in which capital-constrained intermediaries buy or trade an asset in an imperfectly competitive market, and we show that weaker capital constraints lead to both higher prices and intermediary markups.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, D40, D44, G, G1, G12, G18, G2, G20, L, L1, L10