G - Financial Economics
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The Electronic Purse: An Overview of Recent Developments and Policy Issues
Futurists have been speculating about the prospects for a cashless society for many years, and such predictions became more frequent following the introduction of "smart" cards - cards containing a computer chip - in the mid-1970s. -
The Microstructure of Financial Derivatives Markets: Exchange-Traded versus Over-the-Counter
In this report the author focusses on the microstructure of derivatives markets. While the primary objective is to examine derivatives markets in Canada, the author also discusses certain developments in global derivatives markets that are bound to influence the functioning and development of financial markets in a small, open economy such as Canada's. It is […] -
Optimum Currency Areas and Shock Asymmetry: A Comparison of Europe and the United States
Since the early 1980s, models based on economic fundamentals have been poor at explaining the movements in the exchange rate (Messe 1990). In response to this problem, Frankel and Froot (1988) developed a model that uses two approaches to forecast the exchange rate: the fundamentalist approach, which bases the forecast on economic fundamentals, and the chartist approach, which bases the forecast on the past behaviour of the exchange rate. -
Tests of Market Efficiency in the One-Week When-Issued Market for Government of Canada Treasury Bills
This report presents different tests of market efficiency in the when- issued market for Government of Canada treasury bills and examines the effectiveness, in this market, of Bank operations over the 1986 to mid- 1992 period. The when-issued market, which is a combination of a forward and futures market, enables market participants to buy or […] -
The Development of Financial Derivatives Markets: The Canadian Experience
In response to an intense demand for risk management services since the early 1980s, the over-the-counter (OTC) markets for financial derivatives in Canada have developed more vigorously than those for exchange-traded (EXT) derivative securities. This is particularly evident for interest rate derivatives. The objectives of this paper are to examine why Canadian interest rate derivatives […] -
Measuring the Profitability and Effectiveness of Foreign Exchange Market Intervention: Some Canadian Evidence
When the major industrial countries decided to move to a system of managed flexible exchange rates following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, many observers thought that this would reduce, if not eliminate, the need for official foreign exchange market intervention. During the past fifteen years, however, intervention in most countries, including Canada, has […] -
Regulation of Financial Institutions: A Functional Analysis
This study has three main objectives: First, to examine the reasons for the existence of financial institutions that simultaneously lend to one group and borrow from another; second, to analyze the reasons for the special treatment of these institutions in terms of the regulation that governs their activities; and third, to assess the types of […] -
International Capital Mobility and Asset Substitutability: Some Theory and Evidence on Recent Structural Changes
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. -
An Integrated Model of the Portfolio Behaviour of the Canadian Household Sector: 1968-1983
An econometric model of the portfolio behaviour of the Canadian household sector is developed to study the linkages between demands for financial assets. The theoretical basis for the model is a version of the well-known Brainard-Tobin framework, which is extended to integrate the consumption-savings and portfolio-allocation decisions. This integration allows joint estimation of the real […]