G28 - Government Policy and Regulation

• Do Low Interest Rates Sow the Seeds of Financial Crises?

  Staff Working Paper 2011-31 Simona Cociuba, Malik Shukayev, Alexander Ueberfeldt

  A view advanced in the aftermath of the late-2000s financial crisis is that lower than optimal interest rates lead to excessive risk taking by financial intermediaries.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial system regulation and policies, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): D, D5, D53, E, E4, E44, E5, E52, G, G2, G28

• Analyzing Default Risk and Liquidity Demand during a Financial Crisis: The Case of Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2011-17 Jason Allen, Ali Hortaçsu, Jakub Kastl

  This paper explores the reliability of using prices of credit default swap contracts (CDS) as indicators of default probabilities during the 2007/2008 financial crisis.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, E5, E58, G, G0, G01, G2, G28

• Lessons from International Central Counterparties: Benchmarking and Analysis

  Staff Discussion Paper 2011-4 Alexandre Lazarow

  Since the financial crisis, attention has focused on central counterparties (CCPs) as a solution to systemic risk for a variety of financial markets, ranging from repurchase agreements and options to swaps.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G1, G14, G18, G2, G28, G3, G38

• Leverage, Balance Sheet Size and Wholesale Funding

  Staff Working Paper 2010-39 H. Evren Damar, Césaire Meh, Yaz Terajima

  Some evidence points to the procyclicality of leverage among financial institutions leading to aggregate volatility. This procyclicality occurs when financial institutions finance their assets with non-equity funding (i.e., debt financed asset expansions). Wholesale funding is an important source of market-based funding that allows some institutions to quickly adjust their leverage.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, G28

• Regulatory Constraints on Bank Leverage: Issues and Lessons from the Canadian Experience

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-15 Étienne Bordeleau, Allan Crawford, Christopher Graham

  The Basel capital framework plays an important role in risk management by linking a bank's minimum capital requirements to the riskiness of its assets. Nevertheless, the risk estimates underlying these calculations may be imperfect, and it appears that a cyclical bias in measures of risk-adjusted capital contributed to procyclical increases in global leverage prior to the recent financial crisis.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G2, G21, G28

• Comparison of Auction Formats in Canadian Government Auctions

  Staff Working Paper 2009-5 Olivier Armantier, Nourredine Lafhel

  Using a rich sample of Canadian government securities auctions, we estimate the structural parameters of a share-auction model accounting for asymmetries across bidders. We find little evidence of asymmetries between participants at Canadian government nominal bond auctions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Debt management, Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, D44, D6, D63, G, G2, G28

• Best Instruments for Market Discipline in Banking

  Staff Working Paper 2007-9 Greg Caldwell

  The author develops a dynamic model of banking competition to determine which capital instrument is most effective in disciplining banks' risk choice. Comparisons are conducted between equity, subordinated debentures (SD), and uninsured deposits (UD) as funding sources.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial institutions JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, G28

• Estimation of the Default Risk of Publicly Traded Canadian Companies

  Staff Working Paper 2006-28 Georges Dionne, Sadok Laajimi, Sofiane Mejri, Madalina Petrescu

  Two models of default risk are prominent in the financial literature: Merton's structural model and Altman's non-structural model.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Debt management, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, G24, G28, G3, G33

• Ownership Concentration and Competition in Banking Markets

  Staff Working Paper 2006-7 Alexandra Lai, Raphael Solomon

  Many countries prohibit large shareholdings in their domestic banks.The authors examine whether such a restriction restrains competition in a duopolistic loan market. Blockholders may influence managers' output decisions by choosing capital structure, as in Brander and Lewis (1986).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, G28, G3, G32, L, L1, L10

• Subordinated Debt and Market Discipline in Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2005-40 Greg Caldwell

  The author documents the use by Canadian banks of subordinated debt (SD) as a capital instrument.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial institutions JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, G28