The Optimum Quantity of Central Bank Reserves Staff Working Paper 2025-15 Jonathan Witmer This paper analyzes the optimal quantity of central bank reserves in an economy where reserves and other financial assets provide liquidity benefits. Using a static model, I derive a constrained Friedman rule that characterizes the socially optimal level of reserves, demonstrating that this quantity is neither necessarily large nor small but depends on the marginal benefits of reserves relative to alternative safe assets. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, E42, E5, E58, G, G2, G21, G28
Price Discovery in Canadian and U.S. 10-Year Government Bond Markets Staff Working Paper 2007-43 Bryan Campbell, Scott Hendry This paper presents some new results on the price discovery process in both the Canadian and U.S. 10-year Government bond markets using high-frequency data not previously analyzed. Using techniques introduced by Hasbrouck (1995) and Gonzalo-Granger (1995), we look at the relative information content of cash and futures prices in the market for Canadian Government bonds using futures market data from the Montreal Exchange and OTC cash market data reflecting the inter-dealer market covered by CanPx. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G13, G14
The Effect of Exchange Rate Movements on Heterogeneous Plants: A Quantile Regression Analysis Staff Working Paper 2010-25 Ben Tomlin, Loretta Fung In this paper, we examine how the effect of movements in the real exchange rate on manufacturing plants depends on the plant's placement within the productivity distribution. Appreciations of the local currency expose domestic plants to more competition from abroad as export opportunities shrink and import competition intensifies. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Exchange rates, Market structure and pricing, Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D2, D21, F, F1, L, L1, L16, L6, L60
The Welfare Effects of Protection: A General Equilibrium Analysis of Canada’s National Policy Staff Working Paper 2017-18 Patrick Alexander, Ian Keay In this paper, we study the impact of Canada’s adoption of protectionist trade policy in 1879 on Canadian welfare. Under the National Policy the Canadian average weighted tariff increased from 14% to 21%. The conventional view is that this was a distortionary policy that negatively affected Canadian welfare. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Economic models, International topics, Trade integration JEL Code(s): F, F1, F13, F14, F4, F42, F6, F60, N, N7, N71
The Canadian Dollar and Commodity Prices: Has the Relationship Changed over Time? Staff Discussion Paper 2008-15 Philipp Maier, Brian DePratto The authors examine the impact of the recent run-up in energy and non-energy commodity prices on the Canadian dollar. Using the Bank of Canada's exchange rate equation, they find that the differences between the actual value of the Canadian exchange rate and the simulated values observed in 2007 are not historically large. Still, given that […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Exchange rates JEL Code(s): F, F3, F31
Market Concentration and Uniform Pricing: Evidence from Bank Mergers Staff Working Paper 2021-9 João Granja, Nuno Paixão We show that US banks price deposits almost uniformly across their branches and that this pricing practice is more important than increases in local market concentration in explaining the deposit rate dynamics following bank mergers. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial system regulation and policies, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G2, G20, G21, G28, G3, G34, L, L1, L11
Assessing the Impact of Demographic Composition on Productivity Staff Discussion Paper 2025-3 Justin-Damien Guénette, Lin Shao We examine how demographic factors influence potential output, focusing on how the age distribution of the working-age population and the old-age dependency ratio affect aggregate productivity. Following Feyrer (2007), we emphasize that the contribution to aggregate productivity varies by age group, with middle-aged individuals (aged 40 to 49) being the most productive. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): International topics, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): J, J1, J11, O, O4, O47, O5, O51
Housework and Fiscal Expansions Staff Working Paper 2014-34 Stefano Gnocchi, Daniela Hauser, Evi Pappa We build an otherwise-standard business cycle model with housework, calibrated consistently with data on time use, in order to discipline consumption-hours complementarity and relate its strength to the size of fiscal multipliers. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Fiscal policy JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E3, E32, E5, E52, E6, E62
The MacroFinancial Risk Assessment Framework (MFRAF), Version 2.0 Technical Report No. 111 Jose Fique This report provides a detailed technical description of the updated MacroFinancial Risk Assessment Framework (MFRAF), which replaces the version described in Gauthier, Souissi and Liu (2014) as the Bank of Canada’s stress-testing model for banks with a focus on domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs). Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Research Topic(s): Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): C, C7, C72, E, E5, E58, G, G0, G01, G2, G21, G28
A Search Model of Venture Capital, Entrepreneurship, and Unemployment Staff Working Paper 2005-24 Robin Boadway, Oana Secrieru, Marianne Vigneault The authors develop a search model of venture capital in which the number of successful matches of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists (VCs) at any moment in time is a function of the number of entrepreneurs searching for funds, the number of VCs searching for entrepreneurs, and the number of vacancies posted by each VC. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial markets, Fiscal policy, Labour markets JEL Code(s): D, D8, D82, G, G1, G18, G2, G24, H, H2, H21, J, J6, J64