G - Financial Economics

• Anatomy of a Twin Crisis

  Staff Working Paper 2003-41 Raphael Solomon

  The author presents a model of a twin crisis, in which foreign and domestic residents play a banking game. Both "honest" and run equilibria of the post-deposit subgame exist; some run equilibria lead to a currency crisis, as agents convert domestic currency to foreign currency.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Financial institutions JEL Code(s): E, E5, E58, F, F3, F30, G, G2, G21

• Financial Constraints and Investment: Assessing the Impact of a World Bank Loan Program on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Sri Lanka

  Staff Working Paper 2003-37 Varouj Aivazian, Dipak Mazumdar, Eric Santor

  The authors examine the investment behaviour of a sample of small, credit-constrained firms in Sri Lanka. Using a unique panel-data set, they analyze and compare the activities of two groups of small firms distinguished by their different access to financing; one group consists of firms with heavily subsidized loans from the World Bank, and the other consists of firms without such subsidies.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Development economics JEL Code(s): G, G0, G00, O, O1, O16

• Excess Collateral in the LVTS: How Much is Too Much?

  Staff Working Paper 2003-36 Kim McPhail, Anastasia Vakos

  The authors build a theoretical model that generates demand for collateral by Large Value Transfer System (LVTS) participants under the assumption that they minimize the cost of holding and managing collateral for LVTS purposes. The model predicts that the optimal amount of collateral held by each LVTS participant depends on the opportunity cost of collateral, the transactions costs of acquiring assets used as collateral and transferring them in and out of the LVTS, and the distribution of an LVTS participant's payment flows in the LVTS.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, G, G2, G21

• Governance and Financial Fragility: Evidence from a Cross-Section of Countries

  Staff Working Paper 2003-34 Michael Francis

  The author explores the role of governance mechanisms as a means of reducing financial fragility. First, he develops a simple theoretical general-equilibrium model in which instability arises due to an agency problem resulting from a conflict of interest between the borrower and lender.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G0

• An Empirical Analysis of Liquidity and Order Flow in the Brokered Interdealer Market for Government of Canada Bonds

  Staff Working Paper 2003-28 Chris D'Souza, Charles Gaa, Jing Yang

  The authors empirically measure Canadian bond market liquidity using a number of indicators proposed in the literature and detail, for the first time, price and trade dynamics in the Government of Canada secondary bond market. They find, consistent with Inoue (1999), that the Canadian brokered interdealer fixed-income market is relatively liquid for its size.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G10, G14

• Measuring Interest Rate Expectations in Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2003-26 Grahame Johnson

  Financial market expectations regarding future policy actions by the Bank of Canada are an important input into the Bank's decision-making process, and they can be measured using a variety of sources. The author develops a simple expectations-based model to focus on measuring interest rate expectations that are implied by the current level of money market yields.

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

• Income Trusts - Understanding the Issues

  Staff Working Paper 2003-25 Michael R. King

  An income trust is an investment vehicle that distributes cash generated by a set of operating assets in a tax-efficient manner. The market capitalization of income trusts has grown rapidly over the past two years, reaching $45 billion at year-end 2002.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G3

• Essays on Financial Stability

  Technical Report No. 95 John Chant, Alexandra Lai, Mark Illing, Fred Daniel

  The four essays published here provide a useful overview for anyone interested in understanding the issues and policy environment surrounding financial system stability.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G2, G28

• What Does the Risk-Appetite Index Measure?

  Staff Working Paper 2003-23 Miroslav Misina

  Explanations of changes in asset prices as being due to exogenous changes in risk appetite, although arguably controversial, have been popular in the financial community and have also received some attention in attempts to account for recent financial crises. Operational versions of these explanations are based on the assumption that changes in asset prices can be decomposed into a part that can be attributed to changes in riskiness and a part attributable to changes in risk aversion, and that some quantitative measure can capture these effects in isolation.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12

• The U.S. Stock Market and Fundamentals: A Historical Decomposition

  Staff Working Paper 2003-20 David Dupuis, David Tessier

  The authors identify the fundamentals behind the dynamics of the U.S. stock market over the past 30 years. They specify a structural vector-error-correction model following the methodology of King, Plosser, Stock, and Watson (1991).

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