The Role of Financial Speculation in Driving the Price of Crude Oil Staff Discussion Paper 2011-6 Ron Alquist, Olivier Gervais Over the past 10 years, financial firms have increased the size of their positions in the oil futures market. At the same time, oil prices have increased dramatically. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): International topics JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, Q, Q4, Q41
Lessons from International Central Counterparties: Benchmarking and Analysis Staff Discussion Paper 2011-4 Alexandre Lazarow Since the financial crisis, attention has focused on central counterparties (CCPs) as a solution to systemic risk for a variety of financial markets, ranging from repurchase agreements and options to swaps. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G1, G14, G18, G2, G28, G3, G38
Bank Loans for Private and Public Firms in a Credit Crunch Staff Working Paper 2011-13 Jason Allen, Teodora Paligorova Banks reliance on short-term funding has increased over time. While an effective source of financing in good times, the 2007 financial crisis has exposed the vulnerability of banks and ultimately firms to such a liability structure. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G2, G20
The Canadian Debt-Strategy Model: An Overview of the Principal Elements Staff Discussion Paper 2011-3 David Bolder, Simon Deeley The Canadian Debt Strategy Model helps debt managers determine their optimal financing strategy. The model’s code and documentation are available to the public. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Debt management, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets, Fiscal policy JEL Code(s): C, C0, G, G1, G11, G17, H, H6, H63
Belief Dispersion and Order Submission Strategies in the Foreign Exchange Market Staff Working Paper 2011-8 Ingrid Lo, Stephen Sapp This paper empirically examines how dispersions across investors beliefs influence traders order submission decisions in the foreign exchange market. Previous research has found that dispersion in traders beliefs regarding future macroeconomic announcements has a significant impact on both price dynamics and trading volume before the announcements in the foreign exchange and other financial markets. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G1
The Private Equity Premium Puzzle Revisited Staff Working Paper 2011-6 Katya Kartashova In this paper, I extend the results of Moskowitz and Vissing-Jørgensen (2002) on the returns to entrepreneurial investments in the United States. First, following the authors’ methodology I replicate the original findings from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) for the period 1989–1998 and show that the returns to private and public equity are similar. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Interest rates, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): G, G1, G11, G12, G2, G24, G3, G31, G32
Private Information Flow and Price Discovery in the U.S. Treasury Market Staff Working Paper 2011-5 George Jiang, Ingrid Lo Existing studies show that U.S. Treasury bond price changes are mainly driven by public information shocks, as manifested in macroeconomic news announcements and events. The literature also shows that heterogeneous private information contributes significantly to price discovery for U.S. Treasury securities. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G14
Discounting in Mortgage Markets Staff Working Paper 2011-3 Jason Allen, Robert Clark, Jean-François Houde This paper studies discounting in mortgage markets. Using transaction-level data on Canadian mortgages, we document that over time there's been an increase in the average discount, along with substantial dispersion. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G2, G21, L, L0
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