Bond Liquidity Premia Staff Working Paper 2009-28 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, René Garcia Recent asset pricing models of limits to arbitrage emphasize the role of funding conditions faced by financial intermediaries. In the US, the repo market is the key funding market. Then, the premium of on-the-run U.S. Treasury bonds should share a common component with risk premia in other markets. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial stability JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, H, H1, H12
September 11, 2009 Bank of Canada Liquidity Actions in Response to the Financial Market Turmoil Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2009 Lorie Zorn, Carolyn A. Wilkins, Walter Engert In response to the financial crisis of 2007-09, the Bank of Canada intervened repeatedly to stabilize the financial system and limit the repercussions of the crisis on the Canadian economy. This article reviews the extraordinary liquidity measures taken by the Bank during this period and the principles that guided the Bank's interventions. A preliminary assessment of the term liquidity facilities provided by the Bank suggests that they were an important source of liquidity support for some financial institutions and, on a broader basis, served to reduce uncertainty among market participants about the availability of liquidity, as well as helping to promote a return to well-functioning money markets. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial stability
September 11, 2009 Understanding Corporate Bond Spreads Using Credit Default Swaps Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2009 Alejandro García, Jun Yang Corporate bond spreads worldwide have widened markedly since the beginning of the credit crisis in 2007. This article examines default and liquidity risk–the main components of the corporate bond spread–for Canadian firms that issue bonds in the U.S. market, focusing in particular on their evolution during the credit crisis. They find that, during this period, the liquidity component increased more for speculative-grade bonds than it did for investment-grade bonds, consistent with a "flight-to-quality" phenomenon. An important implication of their results for policy-makers seeking to address problems in credit markets is that the liquidity risk in corporate spreads for investment and speculative bonds behaves differently than the default risk, especially during crisis episodes. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets, Financial stability
September 11, 2009 Agency Conflicts in the Process of Securitization Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2009 Teodora Paligorova Recent evidence finds a positive association between the prevalence of loans of inferior quality and the growth in securitized products. Some attribute this development to the lack of incentives for originators to screen and monitor the performance of securitized loans; others stress that certain factors, such as balance-sheet management, also contributed to the problem, making it difficult to pin down the reason for the proliferation of such loans during the period of high securitization growth. The author reviews the conflicts of interest between participants in the securitization process that contributed to the ongoing financial turmoil and highlights the most recent policy measures and potential solutions for ameliorating these agency issues. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets
Short Changed? The Market's Reaction to the Short Sale Ban of 2008 Staff Working Paper 2009-23 Louis Gagnon, Jonathan Witmer Do short sales restrictions have an impact on security prices? We address this question in the context of a natural experiment surrounding the short sale ban of 2008 using a comprehensive sample of Canadian stocks cross-listed in the U.S. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F3, F30, G, G0, G01, G1, G18, G2, G20
The Equity Premium and the Volatility Spread: The Role of Risk-Neutral Skewness Staff Working Paper 2009-20 Bruno Feunou, Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Roméo Tedongap We introduce the Homoscedastic Gamma [HG] model where the distribution of returns is characterized by its mean, variance and an independent skewness parameter under both measures. The model predicts that the spread between historical and risk-neutral volatilities is a function of the risk premium and of skewness. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G13
June 11, 2009 Collateral Management in the LVTS by Canadian Financial Institutions Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2009 Chris D'Souza This article examines the incentives for banks to hold various assets on their balance sheets for use as collateral when the opportunity cost of doing so can be high. Focusing on the five-year period (2002-07) that preceded the financial crisis, it examines the choices made by financial institutions among the assets that are pledged as collateral in Canada's Large Value Transfer System. This serves as a baseline for collateral-management practices during relatively normal times. The results of this study are important for policy-makers, especially the Bank of Canada, which is concerned both about the efficient functioning of fixed-income markets and about the credit risk it ultimately bears in insuring LVTS settlement. The results suggest that relative market liquidity and market-making capacity are important factors in the choice of securities pledged as collateral in the LVTS. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Payment clearing and settlement systems
Real Effects of Price Stability with Endogenous Nominal Indexation Staff Working Paper 2009-16 Césaire Meh, Vincenzo Quadrini, Yaz Terajima We study a model with repeated moral hazard where financial contracts are not fully indexed to inflation because nominal prices are observed with delay as in Jovanovic & Ueda (1997). Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Financial markets, Monetary policy framework, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E3, E31, E4, E44, E5, E52
Complex Ownership and Capital Structure Staff Working Paper 2009-12 Teodora Paligorova, Zhaoxia Xu This paper investigates the impact of pyramid ownership structure and multiple controlling shareholders on firm leverage. Pyramids, having at least one controlling shareholder and a subsidiary, rely significantly more on debt financing than non-pyramid firms. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): G, G3, G31, G32
Comparison of Auction Formats in Canadian Government Auctions Staff Working Paper 2009-5 Olivier Armantier, Nourredine Lafhel Using a rich sample of Canadian government securities auctions, we estimate the structural parameters of a share-auction model accounting for asymmetries across bidders. We find little evidence of asymmetries between participants at Canadian government nominal bond auctions. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Debt management, Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, D44, D6, D63, G, G2, G28