Posts
-
-
Seeking Safety
The scale of safe assets suggests a structural demand for a safe wealth share beyond transaction and liquidity roles. We study how investors achieve a reference wealth level by combining self-insurance and contingent liquidation of investment. Intermediaries improve upon autarky, insuring investors with poor self-insurance and limiting liquidation. -
October 18, 2005
What Drives Movements in Exchange Rates?
Understanding what causes the exchange rate to move has been on ongoing challenge for economists. Despite extensive research, traditional macro models of exchange rate determination—with the exception of the Bank of Canada's exchange rate equation—have typically not fared well, motivating economists to explore new ways to model exchange rate movements that incorporate more complex and realistic settings. Within the context of the sharp appreciation of the Canadian dollar in 2003 and 2004, Bailliu and King review the macroeconomic models of exchange rates, as well as the micro-structure studies that highlight the importance of trading mechanisms, information asymmetry, and investor heterogeneity for explaining short-term dynamics in exchange rates. In addition to summarizing the current state of knowledge, they highlight recent advances and identify promising alternative approaches. -
September 24, 2013
Born of Necessity and Built to Succeed: Why Canada and the World Need the Financial Stability Board
Deputy Governor Lawrence Schembri discusses why the world needs the Financial Stability Board. -
Subordinated Debt and Market Discipline in Canada
The author documents the use by Canadian banks of subordinated debt (SD) as a capital instrument. -
Forecasting the Real Price of Oil in a Changing World: A Forecast Combination Approach
The U.S. Energy Information Administration regularly publishes short-term forecasts of the price of crude oil. -
Quantity, Quality, and Relevance: Central Bank Research, 1990–2003
The authors document the research output of 34 central banks from 1990 to 2003, and use proxies of research inputs to measure the research productivity of central banks over this period. -
Credit Cards: Disentangling the Dual Use of Borrowing and Spending
Over the past 15 years, aggregate credit card balances have been increasing, except for a brief spell in the aftermath of the 2007–09 financial crisis. Determining whether the growing balances are due to increased usage of credit cards as a method of payment or whether they reflect increased short-term borrowing is challenging because aggregate balances are snapshots of charges on credit cards before households make their monthly payments. -
Computing Optimal Policy in a Timeless-Perspective: An Application to a Small-Open Economy
Since the contribution of Kydland and Prescott (1977), it is well known that the optimal Ramsey policy is time inconsistent. In a series of recent contributions, Woodford (2003) proposes a new methodology to circumvent this problem, namely the timeless perspective solution. -
May 16, 2013
Modelling the Asset-Allocation and Liability Strategy for Canada’s Foreign Exchange Reserves
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.