Financial markets

• 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

• The Impact of Market Timing on Canadian and U.S. Firms' Capital Structure

  Staff Working Paper 2009-1 Zhaoxia Xu

  This paper studies the impact of market timing on Canadian firms' capital structure and makes a comparison with U.S. firms.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): G, G3, G32