G2 - Financial Institutions and Services

• Are Sunspots Learnable? An Experimental Investigation in a Simple General-Equilibrium Model

  Staff Working Paper 2013-14 Jasmina Arifovic, George Evans, Olena Kostyshyna

  We conduct experiments with human subjects in a model with a positive production externality in which productivity is a non-decreasing function of the average level of employment of other firms.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models JEL Code(s): D, D8, D83, G, G2, G20

• Countercyclical Bank Capital Requirement and Optimized Monetary Policy Rules

  Staff Working Paper 2013-8 Carlos De Resende, Ali Dib, René Lalonde, Nikita Perevalov

  Using BoC-GEM-Fin, a large-scale DSGE model with real, nominal and financial frictions featuring a banking sector, we explore the macroeconomic implications of various types of countercyclical bank capital regulations. Results suggest that countercyclical capital requirements have a significant stabilizing effect on key macroeconomic variables, but mostly after financial shocks.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Financial institutions, Financial stability, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E44, E5, G, G1, G2

• To Link or Not To Link? Netting and Exposures Between Central Counterparties

  Staff Working Paper 2013-6 Stacey Anderson, Jean-Philippe Dion, Héctor Pérez Saiz

  This paper provides a framework to compare linked and unlinked CCP configurations in terms of total netting achieved by market participants and the total system default exposures that exist between participants and CCPs.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): G, G1, G18, G2, G23

• Méthodologie de construction de séries de taux de défaut pour l’industrie canadienne

  Staff Discussion Paper 2013-2 Ramdane Djoudad, Étienne Bordeleau

  Default rates are series commonly used in stress testing. In Canada, as in many other countries, there are no historical series available for sectoral default rates on bank loans to firms.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial institutions, Financial stability JEL Code(s): C, C1, C13, C18, G, G2, G21, G3, G33
• February 21, 2013

  Conference Summary: Financial Intermediation and Vulnerabilities

  Bank of Canada Review - Winter 2012-2013 Jason Allen, James Chapman, Ian Christensen

  The Bank of Canada’s annual economic conference, held in October 2012, brought together experts from across Canada and around the world to discuss key issues concerning financial intermediation and vulnerabilities. The conference covered such topics as household finances and their relationship to financial stability, as well as bank regulation, securitization and shadow banking.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Central bank research, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): G, G2

• Consumer Interest Rates and Retail Mutual Fund Flows

  Staff Working Paper 2012-39 Jesus Sierra

  This paper documents a link between the real and financial sides of the economy. We find that retail equity mutual fund flows in Canada are negatively related to current and past changes in a component of the prime and 5-year mortgage rates that is uncorrelated with government rates.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial services, Interest rates JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, G23
• November 15, 2012

  Access, Competition and Risk in Centrally Cleared Markets

  Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2012 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Héctor Pérez Saiz, Joshua Slive

  Central counterparties can make over-the-counter markets more resilient and reduce systemic risk by mitigating and managing counterparty credit risk. These benefits are maximized when access to central counterparties is available to a wide range of market participants. In an over-the-counter market, there is an important trade-off between risk and competition. A model of an over-the-counter market shows how risk and competition could be influenced by the incentives of market participants as they move to central clearing. In a centrally cleared market, there may be less risk when participation is high. This helps to explain why regulators have put in place requirements for fair, open and risk-based access criteria.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G18, G2, G21, L, L1, L13
• November 15, 2012

  Monetary Policy and the Risk-Taking Channel: Insights from the Lending Behaviour of Banks

  Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2012 Teodora Paligorova, Jesus Sierra

  The financial crisis of 2007-09 and the subsequent extended period of historically low real interest rates have revived the question of whether economic agents are willing to take on more risk when interest rates remain low for a prolonged time period. This increased appetite for risk, which causes economic agents to search for investment assets and strategies that generate higher investment returns, has been called the risk-taking channel of monetary policy. Recent academic research on banks suggests that lending policies in times of low interest rates can be consistent with the existence of a risk-taking channel of monetary policy in Europe, South America, the United States and Canada. Specifically, studies find that the terms of loans to risky borrowers become less stringent in periods of low interest rates. This risk-taking channel may amplify the effects of traditional transmission mechanisms, resulting in the creation of excessive credit.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial institutions, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E5, E58, G, G2, G21
• November 15, 2012

  The Changing Landscape for Retail Payments in Canada and the Implications for the Demand for Cash

  Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2012 Carlos Arango, Kim Huynh, Ben Fung, Gerald Stuber

  Over the past 20 years, there has been a major shift away from the use of paper-based retail payment instruments, such as cash and cheques, toward electronic means of payment, such as debit cards and credit cards. Recent Bank of Canada research on consumers’ choice of payment instruments indicates that cash is frequently used for transactions with low values because of its speed, ease of use and wide acceptance, while debit and credit cards are more commonly used for transactions with higher values because of perceived attributes such as safety and record keeping. While innovations in retail payments currently being introduced into the Canadian marketplace could lead to a further reduction in the use of cash over the longer term, the implications for the use of cash of some of the structural and regulatory developments under way are less clear.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Bank notes, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial system regulation and policies, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C8, C83, E, E4, E42, G, G2, G28

• The Role of Credit in International Business Cycles

  Staff Working Paper 2012-36 TengTeng Xu

  This paper examines the role of bank credit in modeling and forecasting business cycle fluctuations, and investigates the international transmission of US credit shocks, using a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) framework and associated country-specific error correction models.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credit and credit aggregates, Econometric and statistical methods, International financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, E, E3, E32, E4, E44, G, G2, G21