Market structure and pricing

• Trade and Market Power in Product and Labor Markets

  Staff Working Paper 2021-17 Gaelan MacKenzie

  Trade liberalizations increase the sales and input purchases of productive firms relative to their less productive domestic competitors. This reallocation affects firms’ market power in their product and input markets. I quantify how the labour market power of employers affects the distribution and size of the gains from trade.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Labour markets, Market structure and pricing, Productivity, Trade integration JEL Code(s): D, D4, D43, F, F1, F12, F6, J, L, L1, L13

• Market Concentration and Uniform Pricing: Evidence from Bank Mergers

  Staff Working Paper 2021-9 João Granja, Nuno Paixão

  We show that US banks price deposits almost uniformly across their branches and that this pricing practice is more important than increases in local market concentration in explaining the deposit rate dynamics following bank mergers.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial system regulation and policies, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G2, G20, G21, G28, G3, G34, L, L1, L11

• Distributional Effects of Payment Card Pricing and Merchant Cost Pass-through in Canada and the United States

  Staff Working Paper 2021-8 Marie-Hélène Felt, Fumiko Hayashi, Joanna Stavins, Angelika Welte

  Although credit cards are more expensive for merchants to accept than cash or debit cards, merchants typically pass through their costs evenly to all customers. Along with consumer card rewards and banking fees, this creates cross-subsidies between payment methods. Because higher-income individuals tend to use credit cards more than those with lower incomes, our results indicate that these cross-subsidies might lead to regressive distributional effects.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Financial institutions, Financial services, Market structure and pricing, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, D2, D23, D3, D31, E, E4, E42, G, G2, G21, L, L8, L81

• Strategic Uncertainty in Financial Markets: Evidence from a Consensus Pricing Service

  Staff Working Paper 2020-55 Lerby Ergun, Andreas Uthemann

  We look at the informational content of consensus pricing in opaque over-the-counter markets. We show that the availability of price data informs participants mainly about other participants’ valuations, rather than about the value of a financial security.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): C, C5, C58, D, D5, D53, D8, D83, G, G1, G12, G14
• August 25, 2020

  Our COVID-19 response: Large-scale asset purchases

  Paul Beaudry

  The Bank of Canada has taken many actions to support Canadians since the COVID-19 pandemic struck. These include large-scale asset purchases—buying a substantial amount of government bonds and other financial assets. Our purchases serve two purposes. They help key financial markets work properly, and they can help increase spending in the economy. This leads to more employment and stronger economic growth.

  Content Type(s): Publications, The Economy, Plain and Simple Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Debt management, Financial markets, Financial stability, Inflation and prices, Interest rates, Market structure and pricing, Monetary policy, Monetary policy transmission

• Will exchange-traded funds shape the future of bond dealing?

  Staff Analytical Note 2020-16 Rohan Arora, Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Corey Garriott, Guillaume Ouellet Leblanc

  Bond dealers have traditionally kept bonds in an inventory until clients buy them. But now, dealers have another way to access bonds for their clients: the exchange-traded fund. We discuss this new way to manage bond dealing and what it might mean for bond markets.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial stability, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G2, G20, G23

• Dynamic Competition in Negotiated Price Markets

  Staff Working Paper 2020-22 Jason Allen, Shaoteng Li

  Repeated interactions between borrowers and lenders create the possibility of dynamic pricing: lenders compete aggressively with low prices to attract new borrowers and then raise their prices once borrowers have made a commitment. We find such pricing patterns in the Canadian mortgage market.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G2, G21, L, L2

• Trading on Long-term Information

  Staff Working Paper 2020-20 Corey Garriott, Ryan Riordan

  Investors who trade based on good research are said to be the backbone of stock markets: They conduct research to discover the value of stocks and, through their trading, guide financial prices to reflect true value. What can make their job difficult is that high-speed, short-term traders could use machine learning and other technologies to infer when informed investors are trading.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14, G2, G20, L, L1

• The Market for Acquiring Card Payments from Small and Medium-Sized Canadian Merchants

  Staff Discussion Paper 2020-5 Angelika Welte, Jozsef Molnar

  This note uses industry data and a unique dataset of small and medium-sized merchants to provide insights into the acquirer-merchant market in Canada.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial services, Market structure and pricing, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C2, D, D2, E, E4, E42
• May 20, 2020

  Decisive actions in difficult times

  Speech summary Timothy Lane CFA Society Winnipeg and the Manitoba Association for Business Economics Winnipeg, Manitoba

  Deputy Governor Timothy Lane talks about the Bank’s decisive actions in response to COVID-19, and how these will help Canadians now and in the future.

  Content Type(s): Press, Speeches and appearances, Speech summaries Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Credit and credit aggregates, Credit risk management, Domestic demand and components, Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial services, Financial stability, Fiscal policy, Housing, Inflation and prices, Inflation targets, Interest rates, International financial markets, Labour markets, Lender of last resort, Market structure and pricing, Monetary policy, Monetary policy and uncertainty, Monetary policy implementation, Monetary policy transmission, Productivity, Recent economic and financial developments, Service sector, Trade integration