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This paper studies the impact of market timing on Canadian firms' capital structure and makes a comparison with U.S. firms.

This paper uncovers trends in payment timing in Canada’s Large Value Transfer System (LVTS) from 2003 to 2011. Descriptive analysis shows that LVTS payment activity has not been peaking in the late afternoon since 2008, and the improvement was most significant in 2009.

Differences in market structures may affect the manner in which fundamental information is incorporated into prices. High levels of quote and trade transparency plus substantial quoting obligations in European government securities markets ensure that prices are informationally efficient.

To better understand the dynamics of the Chinese economy and its interaction with the global economy, the authors incorporate China into an existing model for the G-3 economies (i.e., the United States, the euro area, and Japan), paying particular attention to modelling the exchange rate and monetary policy in China.

The financial system makes an important contribution to the welfare of all Canadians. The ability of households and firms to confidently hold and transfer financial assets is one of the fundamental building blocks of the Canadian economy.

This article examines four indicators of balance-sheet risks—leverage, capital, asset liquidity and funding—among different types of financial institutions in Canada over the past three decades. It also discusses relevant developments in the banking sector that could have contributed to the observed dynamics. The authors find that the various risk indicators decreased during the period for most of the non-Big Six financial institutions, but remained relatively unchanged for the Big Six banks. In addition, the balance-sheet risk indicators became more heterogeneous across financial institutions. The observed overall decline and increased heterogeneity follow certain regulatory changes, such as the introduction of the liquidity guidelines on funding in 1995 and the implementation of bank-specific leverage requirements in 2000. Given that these regulations required more balance-sheet risk management, they have likely contributed to the increased resilience of the banking sector.

How much attention do firms pay to macroeconomic news? Through a novel text-based measure, two facts emerge. First, attention is polarized. Most firms either never or always pay attention to economic conditions. Second, it is countercyclical. During recessions, more firms pay attention, and firms pay greater attention to macroeconomic news.

We propose an uncovered expected returns parity (URP) condition for the bilateral spot exchange rate. URP implies that unilateral exchange rate equations are misspecified and that equity returns also affect exchange rates. Fama regressions provide evidence that URP is statistically preferred to uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) for nominal bilateral exchange rates between the US dollar and six countries (Australia, Canada, Japan, Norway, Switzerland and the UK) at the monthly frequency.

We introduce a new class of time-varying parameter vector autoregressions (TVP-VARs) where the identified structural innovations are allowed to influence — contemporaneously and with a lag — the dynamics of the intercept and autoregressive coefficients in these models.

The author develops a dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model with an active banking sector, a financial accelerator, and financial frictions in the interbank and bank capital markets.