Jonathan Witmer

Access to Central Clearing Services for Over-the-Counter Derivatives

The Impact of the Financial Crisis on Cross-Border Funding

Trends in Issuance: Underlying Factors and Implications

Trends in debt issuance have changed significantly over the past decade, both prior to the financial crisis and subsequently. This article provides an update on these trends in Canada relative to those in other capital markets and, where possible, analyzes the impact of the crisis on Canadian corporate issuance. The author examines trends in capital markets in Canada and other regions over the past ten years, focusing on three areas: the issuance of financial and non-financial corporate bonds, the issuance of financial and non-financial corporate equity, and securitization. The increased use of innovative and riskier financing prior to the crisis was less pronounced in Canada, and future refinancing needs are more in line with historical issuance levels.

An Assessment of the Bank of Canada's Term PRA Facility

This paper empirically assesses the effectiveness of the Bank of Canada's term Purchase and Resale Agreement (PRA) facility in reducing short-term bank funding pressures, as measured by the CDOR-OIS spread.

Market Timing of Long-Term Debt Issuance

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 [...]

Short Changed? The Market's Reaction to the Short Sale Ban of 2008

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. Among financial stocks, which were singled out by the ban in both countries, we observe a [...]

The Cost of Equity in Canada: An International Comparison

This paper calculates an implied cost of equity for 19 developed countries from 1991 to 2006. During this period, there has been a decline in the cost of equity of about 10-15 bps per year, which can be partially attributed to declining government yields and declining inflation. Analyst forecast inaccuracy, a proxy for firm-level earnings [...]

An Examination of Canadian Firms Delisting from U.S. Exchanges

This paper examines Canadian and other foreign firms that have been involuntarily delisted from major U.S. exchanges. I find that, for most countries, less than 10% of firms get delisted from a U.S. exchange during my sample period. For Canada, more than 25% of firms listed in the United States get involuntarily delisted. This effect [...]

Estimating and Comparing the Implied Cost of Equity for Canadian and U.S. Firms

This paper estimates the implied cost of equity for Canadian and U.S. firms using a methodology based on the dividend discount model and utilizing firms' current stock price and analysts' forecasted earnings.