G11 - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

• Financial Constraints and the Cash-Holding Behaviour of Canadian Firms

  Staff Discussion Paper 2008-16 Darcey McVanel, Nikita Perevalov

  The proportion of assets held by the average Canadian firm in the form of cash has increased steadily since the early 1990s, and is now roughly twice as large as in 1990. The literature has established that the cash-holding behaviour of firms is highly correlated with financial constraints and firm characteristics.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Sectoral balance sheet JEL Code(s): G, G1, G11, G3, G32

• On Portfolio Separation Theorems with Heterogeneous Beliefs and Attitudes towards Risk

  Staff Working Paper 2008-16 Fousseni Chabi-Yo, Eric Ghysels, Eric Renault

  The early work of Tobin (1958) showed that portfolio allocation decisions can be reduced to a two stage process: first decide the relative allocation of assets across the risky assets, and second decide how to divide total wealth between the risky assets and the safe asset. This so called twofund separation relies on special assumptions on either returns or preferences.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): C, C5, C52, D, D5, D58, G, G1, G11, G12

• The Carry Trade, Portfolio Diversification, and the Adjustment of the Japanese Yen

  Staff Discussion Paper 2008-2 Corinne Luu

  In this paper, the author considers whether fundamentals or other factors can explain the yen's ongoing weakness. In particular, the importance of capital outflows due to the carry trade and longer-term portfolio investment outflows, which may be delaying the adjustment of the yen, are investigated. A simple portfolio model is developed, composed of a speculative […]

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, International topics, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): F, F2, F21, F3, F31, F32, G, G1, G11

• Implications of Asymmetry Risk for Portfolio Analysis and Asset Pricing

  Staff Working Paper 2007-47 Fousseni Chabi-Yo, Dietmar Leisen, Eric Renault

  Asymmetric shocks are common in markets; securities' payoffs are not normally distributed and exhibit skewness. This paper studies the portfolio holdings of heterogeneous agents with preferences over mean, variance and skewness, and derives equilibrium prices.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): C, C5, C52, D, D5, D58, G, G1, G11, G12

• Uninsured Idiosyncratic Production Risk with Borrowing Constraints

  Staff Working Paper 2005-26 Francisco Covas

  The author analyzes a general-equilibrium model of a heterogeneous agents economy in which the agents are subject to borrowing constraints and uninsurable idiosyncratic production risk.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Financial institutions, Financial markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E22, G, G1, G11, M, M1, M13

• The Stochastic Discount Factor: Extending the Volatility Bound and a New Approach to Portfolio Selection with Higher-Order Moments

  Staff Working Paper 2005-2 Fousseni Chabi-Yo, René Garcia, Eric Renault

  The authors extend the well-known Hansen and Jagannathan (HJ) volatility bound. HJ characterize the lower bound on the volatility of any admissible stochastic discount factor (SDF) that prices correctly a set of primitive asset returns.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): C, C6, C61, G, G1, G11, G12

• Commodity-Linked Bonds: A Potential Means for Less-Developed Countries to Raise Foreign Capital

  Staff Working Paper 2004-20 Joseph Atta-Mensah

  The author suggests that commodity-linked bonds could provide a potential means for less-developed countries (LDCs) to raise money on the international capital markets, rather than through standard forms of financing.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Development economics, Financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F3, F30, F34, F4, F49, G, G1, G11, G13, O, O1, O16

• The Demand for Money in a Stochastic Environment

  Staff Working Paper 2004-7 Joseph Atta-Mensah

  The author re-examines the demand-for-money theory in an intertemporal optimization model. The demand for real money balances is derived to be a function of real income and the rates of return of all financial assets traded in the economy.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Monetary aggregates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, E5, E50, G, G1, G11

• Collateral and Credit Supply

  Staff Working Paper 2003-11 Joseph Atta-Mensah

  The author examines the role of collateral in an environment where lenders and borrowers possess identical information and similar beliefs about its future value. Using option-pricing techniques, he shows that a secured loan contract is equivalent to a regular bond and an embedded option to the borrower to default.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Economic models JEL Code(s): E, E5, E51, G, G1, G11, G12, G13

• International Capital Mobility and Asset Substitutability: Some Theory and Evidence on Recent Structural Changes

  Technical Report No. 44 Francesco Caramazza, Kevin Clinton, Agathe Côté, David Longworth

  This study examines different aspects of the international integration of capital markets. In particular, it attempts to determine whether the changes in controls and regulatory policies that have occurred in the past decade have been associated with a greater degree of market integration.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Balance of payments and components, Financial markets JEL Code(s): F, F2, F20, G, G1, G11, G15