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We study the cross-section of equilibrium returns on safe assets using a tractable asset pricing model with a micro-founded demand for liquidity and multiple safe assets with heterogeneous transaction costs. We test the main predictions of our theory using a novel measure of relative (in)convenience yields in the US Treasury market.

In 2024, the Canadian Overnight Repo Rate Average (CORRA) rose 7 basis points above the Bank of Canada’s target overnight rate as settlement balances declined and hedge fund borrowing increased by $30 billion, straining dealers’ balance sheets. Exercising market power, dealers raised rates, and as client activity grew, these higher rates increasingly influenced CORRAs deviation from target.

We construct a dataset on Federal Reserve and Bank of Canada non-rate announcement events to provide novel insights into how foreign and domestic monetary policy communications affect the financial markets of open economies. We find that Fed non-rate communications have a stronger impact on long-term interest rates and stock futures, while Bank of Canada communications are relatively more important for short-term interest rates and the exchange rate.

An alternative to the standard CES aggregator, based on non-homothetic household preferences, is proposed. Specifically, the elasticity of substitution between goods declines during periods of strong per-capita consumption and vice versa, giving firms an incentive to adjust their desired markup in response to the state of demand. Empirical evidence favouring a direct role for per-capita consumption demand in inflation determination for Canada is presented.

We show how Treasury demand shocks transmit to foreign exchange and bond markets globally. Higher Treasury demand weakens the U.S. dollar and raises foreign bond prices, with effects persisting for two weeks. The transmission varies predictably across countries based on their monetary policy alignment with the United States.

We examine the Canadian money market fund (MMF) sector and find that it has grown rapidly, holding a large share of treasury bills and commercial paper. Unlike in some other jurisdictions where investor outflows likely amplified stresses, Canadian MMFs experienced inflows during the March 2020 market turmoil.

We find that the rise in Government of Canada debt issuance correlates to growing participation of hedge funds in bond auctions since 2020. This increased participation supports the cost-effective distribution of Canada’s debt, but it also represents a potential vulnerability because hedge funds have a greater flight risk than other investor types.

This paper studies how financial shocks shape the distribution of output growth by introducing a quantile-augmented vector autoregression (QAVAR), which integrates quantile regressions into a structural VAR framework. The QAVAR preserves standard shock identification while delivering flexible, nonparametric forecasts of conditional moments and tail risk measures for gross domestic product.

We develop a heterogeneous firm macro model with private information and quantify the aggregate relevance of asymmetric information. We find that a spike in private information account for 40% of the decline in aggregate investment during the 2007-2009 financial crisis and made monetary stimulus significantly less effective.

The premium on “on-the-run” Treasuries is an anomaly. I explain it using a model in which primary dealers hold inventories of Treasuries. I use the model to analyze the effects of granting access to central bank facilities.