Interest rates

• Affine Term-Structure Models: Theory and Implementation

  Staff Working Paper 2001-15 David Bolder

  Affine models describe the stylized time-series properties of the term structure of interest rates in a reasonable manner, they generalize relatively easily to higher dimensions, and a vast academic literature exists relating to their implementation. This combination of characteristics makes the affine class a natural introductory point for modelling interest rate dynamics.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Debt management, Econometric and statistical methods, Interest rates JEL Code(s): C, C0, C5, G, G0

• Reactions of Canadian Interest Rates to Macroeconomic Announcements: Implications for Monetary Policy Transparency

  Staff Working Paper 2001-5 Toni Gravelle, Richhild Moessner

  In this study we statistically quantify the reactions of Canadian and U.S. interest rates to macroeconomic announcements released in Canada and in the United States. We find that Canadian interest rates react very little to Canadian macroeconomic news and are significantly affected by U.S. macroeconomic news, which indicates that international influences on the Canadian fixed-income markets are important.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Interest rates, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): E, E0, E4, E5
• December 16, 2000

  The Bank of Canada's Management of Foreign Currency Reserves

  Bank of Canada Review - Winter 2000-2001 Jacobo De Leon

  This article describes the Bank's management of the liquid foreign currency portion of the government's official reserves. It broadly outlines the operations of the Exchange Fund Account (EFA), the main account in which Canada's reserves are held. It then briefly reviews the evolution of the objectives and management of the EFA over the past 25 years, particularly in light of the changing level of reserves and developments in financial markets. The EFA is funded by Canada's foreign currency borrowings in capital markets. The article focuses on the comprehensive portfolio framework used to manage the Account, which matches assets and liabilities. Under this framework, funds are invested in assets that match, as closely as possible, the characteristics of foreign currency liabilities issued, helping to immunize the portfolio against currency and interest rate risks.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial markets, Interest rates
• December 15, 2000

  The Federal Government's Use of Interest Rate Swaps and Currency Swaps

  Bank of Canada Review - Winter 2000-2001 John Kiff, Uri Ron, Shafiq K. Ebrahim

  Interest rate swaps and currency swaps are contracts in which counterparties agree to exchange cash flows according to a pre-arranged formula over a period of time. Since 1985, the federal government has been using such swaps to manage its liabilities in a cost-effective and flexible manner. The authors outline the characteristics of swap agreements and the ways in which the government uses them. They show that the swap program has been cost-effective, estimating that past and projected savings exceed $500 million. The authors also discuss the methods that the government uses to monitor the counterparty credit risk associated with these transactions.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Interest rates

• Estimating the Fractional Order of Integration of Interest Rates Using a Wavelet OLS Estimator

  Staff Working Paper 2000-5 Greg Tkacz

  The debate on the order of integration of interest rates has long focused on the I(1) versus I(0) distinction. In this paper, we use instead the wavelet OLS estimator of Jensen (1999) to estimate the fractional integration parameters of several interest rates for the United States and Canada from 1948 to 1999.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Interest rates JEL Code(s): C, C1, C13, E, E4, E43
• December 13, 1999

  Feedback Rules for Inflation Control: An Overview of Recent Literature

  Bank of Canada Review - Winter 1999–2000 Agathe Côté, Jamie Armour

  Feedback rules are rules aimed at guiding policy-makers as they face the problem of keeping inflation close to a desired path without causing variability elsewhere in the economy. These rules link short-term interest rates, controlled by the central bank, to the rate of inflation and/or its deviation from a target rate. The authors describe the most popular types of feedback rules and review some simulation results.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Interest rates

• The Expectations Hypothesis for the Longer End of the Term Structure: Some Evidence for Canada

  Staff Working Paper 1999-20 Ron Lange

  This paper assesses the expectations theory for the longer end of the term structure of Canadian interest rates using three empirical approaches that have received attention in the literature: (i) cointegration tests of the long-run unbiasedness hypothesis; (ii) simulations of a theoretical long-term yield that is consistent with the expectations hypothesis, and (iii) ex post […]

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43

• Estimating One-Factor Models of Short-Term Interest Rates

  Staff Working Paper 1999-18 Des Mc Manus, David Watt

  There currently exists in the literature several continuous-time one-factor models for short-term interest rates. This paper considers a wide range of these models that are nested into one general model. These models are approximated using both a discrete-time model and a model that accounts for aggregation effects over time, and are estimated by both the […]

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Interest rates JEL Code(s): C, C5, C52, G, G1, G10

• The Information Content of Interest Rate Futures Options

  Staff Working Paper 1999-15 Des Mc Manus

  Options prices are being increasingly employed to extract market expectations and views about monetary policy. In this paper, eurodollar options are monitored to examine the evolution of market sentiment over the possible future values of eurodollar rates. Risk-neutral probability functions are employed to synopsize the information contained in the prices of euro/dollar futures options. Several […]

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Interest rates JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14

• Uncovering Inflation Expectations and Risk Premiums From Internationally Integrated Financial Markets

  Staff Working Paper 1999-6 Ben Fung, Scott Mitnick, Eli Remolona

  Theory and empirical evidence suggest that the term structure of interest rates reflects risk premiums as well as market expectations about future inflation and real interest rates. We propose an approach to extracting such premiums and expectations by exploiting both the comovements among interest rates across the yield curve and between two countries, Canada and […]

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Inflation and prices, Interest rates, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, G, G1, G12, G15