E4 - Money and Interest Rates

• What Drives Bitcoin Fees? Using Segwit to Assess Bitcoin's Long-Run Sustainability

  Staff Working Paper 2022-2 Colin Brown, Jonathan Chiu, Thorsten Koeppl

  We explore what drives transaction fees in the Bitcoin system and consider whether Bitcoin can remain tamper proof in the long run.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, G, G2

• Best Before? Expiring Central Bank Digital Currency and Loss Recovery

  Staff Working Paper 2021-67 Charles M. Kahn, Maarten van Oordt, Yu Zhu

  We consider introducing an expiry date for offline digital currency balances. Consumers whose digital cash expired would automatically receive the funds back into their online account. This functionality could increase demand for digital cash, with the time to expiry playing a key role.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, E42

• News-Driven International Credit Cycles

  Staff Working Paper 2021-66 Galip Kemal Ozhan

  This paper examines the implications of positive news about future asset values that turn out to be incorrect at a later date in an open economy model with banking. The model captures the patterns of bank credit and current account dynamics in Spain between 2000 and 2010. The model finds that the use of unconventional policies leads to a milder bust.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Economic models, Financial stability, Recent economic and financial developments, Sectoral balance sheet JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, F, F3, F32, F4, F41, G, G1, G15, G2, G21

• Quantifying the Economic Benefits of Payments Modernization: the Case of the Large-Value Payment System

  Staff Working Paper 2021-64 Neville Arjani, Fuchun Li, Zhentong Lu

  Canada is undertaking a major initiative to modernize its payments ecosystem. The modernized ecosystem is expected to bring significant benefits to Canadian financial markets and the overall economy. We develop an empirical framework to quantify the economic benefits of modernizing the payment system in Canada.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial system regulation and policies, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C3, E, E4, E42, G, G1, G2, G28

• Revisiting the Monetary Sovereignty Rationale for CBDCs

  Staff Discussion Paper 2021-17 Skylar Brooks

  One argument for central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) is that without them, private and foreign digital monies could displace domestic currencies, threatening the central bank’s monetary policy and lender of last resort capabilities. I revisit this monetary sovereignty rationale and offer a wider view—one that considers a broader set of currency functions and captures important cross-country variation.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Debt management, Digital currencies and fintech, Exchange rate regimes, Financial stability, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, E42, E5, E52, E58, H, H1, H12, H6, H63

• Monetary Policy Spillover to Small Open Economies: Is the Transmission Different under Low Interest Rates?

  Staff Working Paper 2021-62 Jin Cao, Valeriya Dinger, Tomás Gómez, Zuzana Gric, Martin Hodula, Alejandro Jara, Ragnar Juelsrud, Karolis Liaudinskas, Simona Malovaná, Yaz Terajima

  Does the transmission of monetary policy change when interest rates are low or negative? We shed light on this question by analyzing the international bank lending channels of monetary policy using regulatory data on banks from four small open economies: Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic and Norway.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, International topics, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E5, E52, E58, F, F3, F34, F4, F42, G, G2, G21, G28

• Democratic Political Economy of Financial Regulation

  Staff Working Paper 2021-59 Igor Livshits, Youngmin Park

  We offer a theory of how inefficiently lax financial regulation could arise in a democratic society.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Housing, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E44, G, G0, G01, G2, G21, G28, P, P4, P48

• Discount Rates, Debt Maturity, and the Fiscal Theory

  Staff Working Paper 2021-58 Alexandre Corhay, Thilo Kind, Howard Kung, Gonzalo Morales

  Do bond risk premiums influence the effects of debt maturity operations? Using a model with realistic bond risk premiums, we show that maturity operations have sizable effects on expected inflation and output when the central bank passively responds to inflation and the fiscal authority weakly responds to the debt level.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Fiscal policy, Interest rates, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E44, E6, E63, G, G1, G12

• Are Bank Bailouts Welfare Improving?

  Staff Working Paper 2021-56 Malik Shukayev, Alexander Ueberfeldt

  Financial sector bailouts, while potentially beneficial during a crisis, might lead to excessive risk taking if anticipated. Taking expectations and aggregate risk implications into account, we show that bailouts can be welfare improving, but only if capital adequacy constraints are sufficiently tight.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): D, D6, D62, E, E3, E32, E4, E44, G, G0, G01

• A Q-Theory of Banks

  Staff Working Paper 2021-44 Juliane Beganau, Saki Bigio, Jeremy Majerovitz, Matías Vieyra

  Using stock market data on banks, we show that the book value of loans recognizes losses with a delay. This delayed accounting is important for regulation because the requirements regulators impose are based on book values.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, G, G2, G21, G3, G32, G33