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397 Results

When Is It Less Costly for Risky Firms to Borrow? Evidence from the Bank Risk- Taking Channel of Monetary Policy

Staff Working Paper 2012-10 Teodora Paligorova, João Santos
In an investigation of banks’ loan pricing policies in the United States over the past two decades, this study finds supporting evidence for the bank risk-taking channel of monetary policy. We show that banks charge lower spreads when they lend to riskier borrowers relative to the spreads they charge on loans to safer borrowers in periods of low short-term rates compared to periods of high short-term rates.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial institutions, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21
February 23, 2012

Household Insolvency in Canada

With increasing levels of household debt in recent years, the number of households that may be vulnerable to a negative economic shock is rising as well. Decisions made by both the debtor and the creditor can contribute to insolvency. This article presents some stylized facts about insolvency in Canada’s household sector and analyzes the role of creditors in insolvencies. The average debt of an individual filing for bankruptcy is more than 1.5 times that of an average Canadian household; bankruptcy filers tend to be unemployed or in low-wage jobs, and are typically renters. The article reports that banks that approve more loans per branch, which is interpreted as less-intensive use of soft information (such as the loan officer’s assessment of the applicant’s character), experience more client bankruptcies. This finding has important policy implications, because financial institutions that do not use soft information risk further deterioration in their lending portfolios.
Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Research Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G2

Price Competition and Concentration in Search and Negotiation Markets: Evidence from Mortgage Lending

Staff Working Paper 2012-4 Jason Allen, Robert Clark, Jean-François Houde
This paper examines the impact of bank consolidation on mortgage rates in order to evaluate the extent to which mortgage markets are competitive. Mortgage markets are decentralized and so rates are determined through a search and negotiation process.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services, Interest rates JEL Code(s): G, G2, L, L1

Bank Leverage Regulation and Macroeconomic Dynamics

Staff Working Paper 2011-32 Ian Christensen, Césaire Meh, Kevin Moran
This paper assesses the merits of countercyclical bank balance sheet regulation for the stabilization of financial and economic cycles and examines its interaction with monetary policy.

Do Low Interest Rates Sow the Seeds of Financial Crises?

Staff Working Paper 2011-31 Simona Cociuba, Malik Shukayev, Alexander Ueberfeldt
A view advanced in the aftermath of the late-2000s financial crisis is that lower than optimal interest rates lead to excessive risk taking by financial intermediaries.

What Matters in Determining Capital Surcharges for Systemically Important Financial Institutions?

Staff Discussion Paper 2011-9 Céline Gauthier, Toni Gravelle, Xuezhi Liu, Moez Souissi
One way of internalizing the externalities that each individual bank imposes on the rest of the financial system is to impose capital surcharges on them in line with their systemic importance.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): C, C1, C15, C8, C81, E, E4, E44, G, G0, G01, G2, G21

Measuring Systemic Importance of Financial Institutions: An Extreme Value Theory Approach

Staff Working Paper 2011-19 Toni Gravelle, Fuchun Li
In this paper, we define a financial institution’s contribution to financial systemic risk as the increase in financial systemic risk conditional on the crash of the financial institution. The higher the contribution is, the more systemically important is the institution for the system.

Analyzing Default Risk and Liquidity Demand during a Financial Crisis: The Case of Canada

Staff Working Paper 2011-17 Jason Allen, Ali Hortaçsu, Jakub Kastl
This paper explores the reliability of using prices of credit default swap contracts (CDS) as indicators of default probabilities during the 2007/2008 financial crisis.
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