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Consumers, businesses and banks make millions of payments each day using a variety of instruments, such as debit cards, cheques and wires. Canada is currently developing three new systems to process these transactions: Lynx, Settlement Optimization Engine (SOE) and Real-Time Rail (RTR).

We investigate whether hedge funds contributed to Government of Canada bond market illiquidity at the onset of the Middle East war in early 2026. We find no evidence they did. Hedge funds remained active in primary auctions, while their secondary market trading remained broadly consistent with their usual relative-value strategies.

We study a cross section of carry-trade-generated currency excess returns in terms of their exposure to global fundamental macroeconomic risk.

Using the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Locational Banking Statistics data on bilateral bank claims from 1995 to 2014, we analyze the impact of monetary policy on cross-border bank flows. We find that monetary policy in a source country is an important determinant of cross-border bank flows.

News media present competing interpretations of what breaking news implies for the macroeconomy. Recent examples include news reporting on high inflation and yield curve inversions. Do these narratives shape macroeconomic sentiment? In this paper, we highlight the importance of narratives using evidence linking traditional media and social media.

We construct and estimate a structural two-stage model of equilibrium in a market for payments in order to quantify the network externalities and identify the main determinants of consumer and merchant decisions.

Using data from the Bank Note Distribution System and consumer surveys, we find that bank notes in circulation remained high through 2021. Canadians continued to rely on electronic methods of payment, but a significant share also continued using cash for payments.

We explore the idea that the financial sector can be a source of non-fundamental risk to the rest of the economy. We also consider whether policy can be used to reduce this risk—either by increasing the supply of publicly backed safe assets or by reducing the demand for safe assets.

The Bank of Canada recently launched a quarterly survey to measure the expectations of Canadian households: the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations (CSCE). The data collected provide comprehensive information about consumer expectations for and uncertainty about inflation, the labour market and household finance. This article describes the CSCE and illustrates its potential to offer rich information about Canadian consumers for researchers and policy-makers.

Product standards are omnipresent in industrialized societies. Though standardization can be beneficial for domestic producers, divergent product standards have been categorized as a major obstacle to international trade. This paper quantifies the effect of standard harmonization on trade flows and characterizes the extent to which it changes the cost and demand structure of exporting.