F31 - Foreign Exchange

• November 19, 2015

  Recent Enhancements to the Management of Canada’s Foreign Exchange Reserves

  Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2015 Mervin Merkowsky, Eric Wolfe

  As the size and complexity of the foreign exchange reserves have grown over the years, enhancements to the management framework needed to keep pace. This is a common theme for most reserve managers around the world. In Canada, the enhancements focused on governance, portfolio management, risk measurement and risk management. This article briefly describes these enhancements, why they were implemented and some of the lessons learned along the way.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Central bank research, Foreign reserves management, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E5, E58, F, F3, F31, G, G1

• Exchange Rate Pass-Through to Consumer Prices: Theory and Recent Evidence

  Staff Discussion Paper 2015-9 Laurence Savoie-Chabot, Mikael Khan

  In an open economy such as Canada’s, exchange rate movements can have a material impact on consumer prices. This is particularly important in the current context, with the significant depreciation of the Canadian dollar vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar since late 2012.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, E52, F, F3, F31
• May 13, 2014

  The Canadian Dollar as a Reserve Currency

  Bank of Canada Review - Spring 2014 Lukasz Pomorski, Francisco Rivadeneyra, Eric Wolfe

  This article provides an overview of the growth of Canadian-dollar-denominated assets in official foreign reserves. Based on International Monetary Fund data and on internal Bank of Canada analysis, we estimate that the total reserve holdings of Canadian-dollar assets increased from negligible levels before 2008 to around US$200 billion in the third quarter of 2013. We discuss the determinants of this increase, as well as its potential impact on Canadian debt markets, for example, lower yields and therefore reduced financing costs for the Government of Canada, and the possible negative impact on market liquidity.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Central bank research, Foreign reserves management, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E5, E58, F, F3, F31, G, G1, G12
• May 16, 2013

  Modelling the Asset-Allocation and Liability Strategy for Canada’s Foreign Exchange Reserves

  Bank of Canada Review - Spring 2013 Francisco Rivadeneyra, Jianjian Jin, Narayan Bulusu, Lukasz Pomorski

  The Bank of Canada recently developed an asset-liability-matching model to aid in the management of Canada’s foreign exchange reserves. The model allows policy-makers at the Bank and the Department of Finance to analyze asset-allocation and funding-mix decisions by quantifying both the risk-return and liquidity trade-offs for the assets, as well as the risk-cost trade-offs of the funding liabilities.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Debt management, Foreign reserves management JEL Code(s): F, F3, F31, G, G1, G11, G18
• August 16, 2012

  Global Risk Premiums and the Transmission of Monetary Policy

  Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2012 Gregory Bauer, Antonio Diez de los Rios

  An important channel in the transmission of monetary policy is the relationship between the short-term policy rate and long-term interest rates. Using a new term-structure model, the authors show that the variation in long-term interest rates over time consists of two components: one representing investor expectations of future policy rates, and another reflecting a term-structure risk premium that compensates investors for holding a risky asset. The time variation in the term-structure risk premium is countercyclical and largely determined by global macroeconomic conditions. As a result, long-term rates are pushed up during recessions and down during times of expansion. This is an important phenomenon that central banks need to take into account when using short-term rates as a policy tool.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Asset pricing, Financial markets, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, F, F3, F31, G, G1, G12, G15

• The Sensitivity of Producer Prices to Exchange Rates: Insights from Micro Data

  Staff Working Paper 2012-20 Shutao Cao, Wei Dong, Ben Tomlin

  This paper studies the sensitivity of Canadian producer prices to the Canada-U.S. exchange rate. Using a unique product-level price data set, we estimate and analyze the impact of movements in the exchange rate on both domestic and export producer prices.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Inflation and prices, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): E, E3, E30, F, F3, F31, F4, F41, L, L1, L11

• An International Dynamic Term Structure Model with Economic Restrictions and Unspanned Risks

  Staff Working Paper 2012-5 Gregory Bauer, Antonio Diez de los Rios

  We construct a multi-country affine term structure model that contains unspanned macroeconomic and foreign exchange risks. The canonical version of the model is derived and is shown to be easy to estimate.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Exchange rates, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, F, F3, F31, G, G1, G12, G15

• Effectiveness of Capital Controls in India: Evidence from the Offshore NDF Market

  Staff Working Paper 2011-29 Michael Hutchison, Gurnain Pasricha, Nirvikar Singh

  This paper examines the effectiveness of international capital controls in India over time by analyzing daily return differentials in the non-deliverable forward (NDF) markets using the self-exciting threshold autoregressive (SETAR) methodology.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F3, F31, F32, G, G1, G15

• Exchange Rates and Individual Good’s Price Misalignment: Some Preliminary Evidence of Long-Horizon Predictability

  Staff Discussion Paper 2011-8 Wei Dong, Deokwoo Nam

  When prices are sticky, movements in the nominal exchange rate have a direct impact on international relative prices. A relative price misalignment would trigger an adjustment in consumption and employment, and may help to predict future movements in the exchange rate.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F3, F31, F4, F47

• External Stability, Real Exchange Rate Adjustment and the Exchange Rate Regime in Emerging-Market Economies

  Staff Discussion Paper 2011-5 Olivier Gervais, Lawrence L. Schembri, Lena Suchanek

  In emerging-market economies, real exchange rate adjustment is critical for maintaining a sustainable current account position and thereby for helping to reduce macroeconomic and financial instability.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Development economics, Exchange rate regimes, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F3, F31, F32, F4, F41