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This note studies how decreases in mortgage rates affect the behaviour of borrowers in terms of spending on durable goods and repaying debt.

Models for macroeconomic forecasts do not usually take into account the risk of a crisis—that is, a sudden large decline in gross domestic product (GDP). However, policy-makers worry about such GDP tail risk because of its large social and economic costs.

Dealers connect investors who want to buy or sell securities in financial markets. Over time, dealers and investors form trading networks to save time and resources. An emerging field of research investigates how networks form.

The creation and redemption activity of fixed-income exchange-traded funds listed in the United States has shifted. Funds of established issuers have traditionally exchanged their shares for baskets of bonds. In contrast, young funds managed by new issuers tend to create and redeem their shares almost exclusively in cash. Cash transactions imply that new funds are taking on exposure to liquidity risk. This has implications for financial stability.

The Canadian financial system is vulnerable to cyber threats. But for many firms, cyber risk is difficult to quantify. We examine public information on past cyber incidents to better understand the current risk landscape and find that a holistic view is needed to fully grasp the nature of this risk.

We examine loan insurance—credit risk transfer upon origination—in a model in which lenders can screen, learn loan quality over time, and can sell loans. Some lenders with low screening ability insure, benefiting from higher market liquidity of insured loans while forgoing the option to exploit future information about loan quality.

Liquidity creation is a fundamental function of banks. It provides the public with easy access to funds. These funds are important because they allow households and businesses to consume and invest. In this note, we measure liquidity creation by Canadian financial institutions from the first quarter of 2012 to the second quarter of 2019, using a methodology suggested by Berger and Bouwman (2009) and known as the BB measure.

Financial markets can experience sudden and extreme downward movements. Investors are highly concerned about the performance of their assets in such scenarios. Some assets perform badly in a downturn in the market; others have milder reactions.

How do banks' interconnections in the euro area contribute to the vulnerability of the banking system? We study both the direct interconnections (banks lend to each other) and the indirect interconnections (banks are exposed to similar sectors of the economy). These complex linkages make the banking system more vulnerable to contagion risks.

The cost of borrowing Government of Canada treasury bills (t-bills) in the repurchase (repo) market is mainly explained by the relationship between the parties involved. Some pairs of parties conduct most of their repos for t-bills rather than bonds, and at relatively high borrowing costs. We speculate that these pairs have formed a mutually beneficial service relationship in which one party consistently receives t-bills, while the other receives cash at a relatively cheap rate.