November 15, 2012 The Changing Landscape for Retail Payments in Canada and the Implications for the Demand for Cash Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2012 Carlos Arango, Kim Huynh, Ben Fung, Gerald Stuber Over the past 20 years, there has been a major shift away from the use of paper-based retail payment instruments, such as cash and cheques, toward electronic means of payment, such as debit cards and credit cards. Recent Bank of Canada research on consumers’ choice of payment instruments indicates that cash is frequently used for transactions with low values because of its speed, ease of use and wide acceptance, while debit and credit cards are more commonly used for transactions with higher values because of perceived attributes such as safety and record keeping. While innovations in retail payments currently being introduced into the Canadian marketplace could lead to a further reduction in the use of cash over the longer term, the implications for the use of cash of some of the structural and regulatory developments under way are less clear. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Bank notes, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial system regulation and policies, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C8, C83, E, E4, E42, G, G2, G28
The Role of Credit in International Business Cycles Staff Working Paper 2012-36 TengTeng Xu This paper examines the role of bank credit in modeling and forecasting business cycle fluctuations, and investigates the international transmission of US credit shocks, using a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) framework and associated country-specific error correction models. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credit and credit aggregates, Econometric and statistical methods, International financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, E, E3, E32, E4, E44, G, G2, G21
China’s Emergence in the World Economy and Business Cycles in Latin America Staff Working Paper 2012-32 Ambrogio Cesa-Bianchi, M. Hashem Pesaran, Alessandro Rebucci, TengTeng Xu The international business cycle is very important for Latin America’s economic performance as the recent global crisis vividly illustrated. This paper investigates how changes in trade linkages between China, Latin America, and the rest of the world have altered the transmission mechanism of international business cycles to Latin America. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods, International topics, Recent economic and financial developments, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, E, E3, E32, F, F4, F44, O, O5, O54
Efficiency and Bargaining Power in the Interbank Loan Market Staff Working Paper 2012-29 Jason Allen, James Chapman, Federico Echenique, Matthew Shum Using detailed loan transactions-level data we examine the efficiency of an overnight interbank lending market, and the bargaining power of its participants. Our analysis relies on the equilibrium concept of the core, which imposes a set of no-arbitrage conditions on trades in the market. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C7, C71, E, E5, E58, G, G2, G21, G28
Why Do Shoppers Use Cash? Evidence from Shopping Diary Data Staff Working Paper 2012-24 Naoki Wakamori, Angelika Welte Recent studies find that cash remains a dominant payment choice for small-value transactions despite the prevalence of alternative means of payment such as debit and credit cards. For policy makers an important question is whether consumers truly prefer using cash or merchants restrict card usage. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial services JEL Code(s): C, C2, D, D1, G, G2
Unconventional Monetary Policy and the Great Recession: Estimating the Macroeconomic Effects of a Spread Compression at the Zero Lower Bound Staff Working Paper 2012-21 Christiane Baumeister, Luca Benati We explore the macroeconomic effects of a compression in the long-term bond yield spread within the context of the Great Recession of 2007-2009 via a time-varying parameter structural VAR model. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Interest rates, Monetary policy framework, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): C, C1, C11, C3, C32, E, E5, E52, E58
Estimating the Demand for Settlement Balances in the Canadian Large Value Transfer System Staff Working Paper 2012-15 Nellie Zhang This paper applies a static model of an interest rate corridor to the Canadian data, and estimates the aggregate demand for central-bank settlement balances in the Large Value Transfer System (LVTS). Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Interest rates, Monetary policy implementation, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C3, C36, E, E4, E40, E5, E50, G, G0, G01
The Impact of Retail Payment Innovations on Cash Usage Staff Working Paper 2012-14 Ben Fung, Kim Huynh, Leonard Sabetti Many predict that innovations in retail payment may render cash obsolete. We investigate this possibility in the context of recent payment innovations such as contactless-credit and stored-value cards. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial services, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C3, C35, C8, C83, E, E4, E41
A Framework to Assess Vulnerabilities Arising from Household Indebtedness Using Microdata Staff Discussion Paper 2012-3 Ramdane Djoudad Rising levels of household indebtedness have created concerns about the vulnerabilities of households to adverse economic shocks and the impact on financial stability. To assess these risks, the author presents a formal stress-testing framework that uses microdata to simulate how various economic shocks affect the distribution of the debt-service ratio (DSR) for the household sector. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability JEL Code(s): C, C1, C15, C3, C31, D, D1, D14, E, E5, E51
Short-Term Forecasting of the Japanese Economy Using Factor Models Staff Working Paper 2012-7 Claudia Godbout, Marco J. Lombardi While the usefulness of factor models has been acknowledged over recent years, little attention has been devoted to the forecasting power of these models for the Japanese economy. In this paper, we aim at assessing the relative performance of factor models over different samples, including the recent financial crisis. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C50, C53, E, E3, E37, E4, E47