FSRC - Financial System Research Center

• Regulatory Constraints on Bank Leverage: Issues and Lessons from the Canadian Experience

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-15 Étienne Bordeleau, Allan Crawford, Christopher Graham

  The Basel capital framework plays an important role in risk management by linking a bank's minimum capital requirements to the riskiness of its assets. Nevertheless, the risk estimates underlying these calculations may be imperfect, and it appears that a cyclical bias in measures of risk-adjusted capital contributed to procyclical increases in global leverage prior to the recent financial crisis.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G2, G21, G28

• Market Timing of Long-Term Debt Issuance

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-14 Jonathan Witmer

  The literature on market timing of long-term debt issuance yields mixed evidence that managers can successfully time their debt-maturity issuance. The early results that are indicative of debt-maturity timing are not robust to accounting for structural breaks or to other measures of debt maturity from firm-level data that account for call and put provisions in […]

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): G, G3, G30, G38

• Network Analysis and Canada's Large Value Transfer System

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-13 Lana Embree, Tom Roberts

  Analysis of the characteristics and structure of a network of financial institutions can provide insight into the complex relationships and interdependencies that exist in a payment, clearing, and settlement system (PCSS), and allow an intuitive understanding of the PCSS's efficiency, stability, and resiliency.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): D, D8, D85, G, G1, G10

• Optimal Monetary Policy during Endogenous Housing-Market Boom-Bust Cycles

  Staff Working Paper 2009-32 Hajime Tomura

  This paper uses a small-open economy model for the Canadian economy to examine the optimal Taylor-type monetary policy rule that stabilizes output and inflation in an environment where endogenous boom-bust cycles in house prices can occur.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Financial stability, Inflation targets JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, E5, E52

• Measures of Aggregate Credit Conditions and Their Potential Use by Central Banks

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-12 Alejandro García, Andrei Prokopiw

  Understanding the nature of credit risk has important implications for financial stability. Since authorities – notably, central banks – focus on risks that have systemic implications, it is crucial to develop ways to measure these risks.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Financial markets, Financial stability JEL Code(s): G, G1, G10, G12, G13

• Bond Liquidity Premia

  Staff Working Paper 2009-28 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, René Garcia

  Recent asset pricing models of limits to arbitrage emphasize the role of funding conditions faced by financial intermediaries. In the US, the repo market is the key funding market. Then, the premium of on-the-run U.S. Treasury bonds should share a common component with risk premia in other markets.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial stability JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, H, H1, H12

• Consumption, Housing Collateral, and the Canadian Business Cycle

  Staff Working Paper 2009-26 Ian Christensen, Paul Corrigan, Caterina Mendicino, Shin-Ichi Nishiyama

  Using Bayesian methods, we estimate a small open economy model in which consumers face limits to credit determined by the value of their housing stock. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the role of collateralized household debt in the Canadian business cycle.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credit and credit aggregates, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E3, E32, E4, E44, E5, E52, R, R2, R21

• Credit Constraints and Consumer Spending

  Staff Working Paper 2009-25 Kimberly Beaton

  This paper examines the relationship between aggregate consumer spending and credit availability in the United States. The author finds that consumer spending falls (rises) in response to a reduction (increase) in credit availability.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Domestic demand and components, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E27, E4, E44, E5, E51, E58

• 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

• A Financial Conditions Index for the United States

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-11 Kimberly Beaton, René Lalonde, Corinne Luu

  The financial crisis of 2007–09 has highlighted the importance of developments in financial conditions for real economic activity. The authors estimate the effect of current and past shocks to financial variables on U.S. GDP growth by constructing two growthbased financial conditions indexes (FCIs) that measure the contribution to quarterly (annualized) GDP growth from financial conditions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary and financial indicators, Monetary conditions index, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E44, E47, E5, E51