Financial institutions
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Subordinated Debt and Market Discipline in Canada
The author documents the use by Canadian banks of subordinated debt (SD) as a capital instrument. -
Degree of Internationalization and Performance: An Analysis of Canadian Banks
The international business literature measures the link between the degree of internationalization (DOI) of a firm's activities and its performance. -
Uninsured Idiosyncratic Production Risk with Borrowing Constraints
The author analyzes a general-equilibrium model of a heterogeneous agents economy in which the agents are subject to borrowing constraints and uninsurable idiosyncratic production risk. -
The Impact of Unanticipated Defaults in Canada's Large Value Transfer System
Canada's Large Value Transfer System (LVTS) is designed to meet international risk-proofing standards at a minimum cost to participants in terms of collateral requirements. -
Pocket Banks and Out-of-Pocket Losses: Links between Corruption and Contagion
The author describes a model with a corrupt banking system, in which bankers knowingly lend at market interest rates to back projects riskier than the market rate indicates. -
Bank Failures and Bank Fundamentals: A Comparative Analysis of Latin America and East Asia during the Nineties using Bank-Level Data
The author develops the first comparative empirical study of bank failures during the nineties between East Asia and Latin America using bank-level data, in order to address the following two questions: (i) To what extent did individual bank conditions explain bank failures? (ii) Did mainly the weakest banks, in terms of their fundamentals, fail in the crisis countries? -
June 18, 2005
Recent Trends in Canadian Defined-Benefit Pension Sector Investment and Risk Management
Defined-benefit (DB) pension plans account for the majority of employer pension fund assets. In recent years, a number of DB plans have become underfunded, in sharp contrast to the 1990s, when many plans had large actuarial surpluses. The deterioration in the financial health of DB plans has underscored various longer-term structural issues that could make it increasingly difficult for plan sponsors to manage the financial risks of these plans. Tuer and Woodman examine how funding deficits, a greater focus on plan liabilities, a low yield environment, and changing investment beliefs are influencing investment decisions in the Canadian DB pension sector. They review the funding of DB plans, changing views on the equity-risk premium, and the shift towards liability-centred approaches to investment and how these developments are affecting pension sector investment. They also consider additional influences on the pension sector, including the limited supply of long-term bonds, the elimination of the foreign-property rule, and the movement towards fair-value accounting and a financial-economics approach to actuarial valuation, as well as their implications for financial markets. -
Efficiency and Economies of Scale of Large Canadian Banks
The authors measure the economies of scale of Canada's six largest banks and their costefficiency over time. Using a unique panel data set from 1983 to 2003, they estimate pooled translog cost functions and derive measures of relative efficiency and economies of scale. -
An Analysis of Closure Policy under Alternative Regulatory Structures
The author develops a theoretical model of bank closure. The regulatory decision about bank failure consists of two parts: whether to close and how to close.