Leverage, Balance Sheet Size and Wholesale Funding Staff Working Paper 2010-39 H. Evren Damar, Césaire Meh, Yaz Terajima Some evidence points to the procyclicality of leverage among financial institutions leading to aggregate volatility. This procyclicality occurs when financial institutions finance their assets with non-equity funding (i.e., debt financed asset expansions). Wholesale funding is an important source of market-based funding that allows some institutions to quickly adjust their leverage. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, G28
The Impact of Liquidity on Bank Profitability Staff Working Paper 2010-38 Étienne Bordeleau, Christopher Graham The recent crisis has underlined the importance of sound bank liquidity management. In response, regulators are devising new liquidity standards with the aim of making the financial system more stable and resilient. In this paper, the authors analyse the impact of liquid asset holdings on bank profitability for a sample of large U.S. and Canadian banks. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, G3, G32, G33
November 18, 2010 Trends in Issuance: Underlying Factors and Implications Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2010 Jonathan Witmer Trends in debt issuance have changed significantly over the past decade, both prior to the financial crisis and subsequently. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies
Understanding Systemic Risk: The Trade-Offs between Capital, Short-Term Funding and Liquid Asset Holdings Staff Working Paper 2010-29 Céline Gauthier, Zhongfang He, Moez Souissi We offer a multi-period systemic risk assessment framework with which to assess recent liquidity and capital regulatory requirement proposals in a holistic way. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): C, C1, C15, C8, C81, E, E4, E44, G, G0, G01, G2, G21
Central Bank Haircut Policy Staff Working Paper 2010-23 James Chapman, Jonathan Chiu, Miguel Molico We present a model of central bank collateralized lending to study the optimal choice of the haircut policy. We show that a lending facility provides a bundle of two types of insurance: insurance against liquidity risk as well as insurance against downside risk of the collateral. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Central bank research, Financial services, Financial system regulation and policies, Monetary policy implementation, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E40, E5, E50
Liquidity Transformation and Bank Capital Requirements Staff Working Paper 2010-22 Hajime Tomura This paper presents a dynamic general equilibrium model where asymmetric information about asset quality leads to asset illiquidity. Banking arises endogenously in this environment as banks can pool illiquid assets to average out their idiosyncratic qualities and issue liquid liabilities backed by pooled assets whose total quality is public information. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): D, D8, D82, E, E4, E44, G, G2, G21
August 19, 2010 Should Monetary Policy Be Used to Counteract Financial Imbalances? Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2010 Jean Boivin, Césaire Meh, Timothy Lane The authors examine whether monetary policy should and could do more to lean against financial imbalances (such as those associated with asset-price bubbles or unsustainable credit expansion) as they are building up, or whether its role should be limited to cleaning up the economic consequences as the imbalances unwind. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial system regulation and policies, Monetary policy framework
Identifying Asymmetric Comovements of International Stock Market Returns Staff Working Paper 2010-21 Fuchun Li Based on a new approach for measuring the comovements between stock market returns, we provide a nonparametric test for asymmetric comovements in the sense that stock market downturns will lead to stronger comovements than market upturns. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C4, C49, F, F2, F21, G, G1, G15, G19
Regulatory Constraints on Bank Leverage: Issues and Lessons from the Canadian Experience Staff Discussion Paper 2009-15 Étienne Bordeleau, Allan Crawford, Christopher Graham The Basel capital framework plays an important role in risk management by linking a bank's minimum capital requirements to the riskiness of its assets. Nevertheless, the risk estimates underlying these calculations may be imperfect, and it appears that a cyclical bias in measures of risk-adjusted capital contributed to procyclical increases in global leverage prior to the recent financial crisis. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G2, G21, G28
November 11, 2009 The Evolution of Capital Flows to Emerging-Market Economies Bank of Canada Review - Winter 2009-2010 Lena Suchanek, Garima Vasishtha Many emerging-market economies (EMEs) have significantly improved their macroeconomic fundamentals and undergone structural reforms since the Asian crisis. These developments have enhanced the composition of capital flows to EMEs through an improved debt structure, a larger share of capital flows as foreign direct investment, and greater access to international debt markets for corporations in EMEs. Structural changes in the global financial landscape have also increased capital flows, bringing economic and financial benefits to EMEs. During the recent financial crisis, however, the opening up of capital accounts and increased financial and trade linkages left many countries vulnerable to external disruptions. Countries with sound fundamentals have weathered the crisis relatively well. Policy-makers in EMEs need to implement policies that support capital flows and ensure that controls imposed to deal with detrimental outflows during periods of stress or rapid inflows are only temporary. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Development economics, Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies