Staff research

We study access to Canadian retail banking and cash services in rural, localized markets using the Bresnahan-Reiss entry threshold framework. We find that the first retail banking services branch entry requires about 500 residents in an average market, whereas the first cash services location requires about 80 residents.

Sovereign borrowing is rising, just as central banks are stepping back. Meanwhile, commercial bank holdings of sovereign bonds remain well below pre-global financial crisis levels. This leaves foreign investors and investment funds, often hedge funds, to absorb more of this growing supply. Their greater involvement supports liquidity and robust auction results, but it can also concentrate risk.

This paper reviews recent efforts to monitor and assess systemic risk in the Canadian financial system and outlines a framework for future system-wide stress testing.

We show that in a heterogeneous economy, optimal policy after cost-push shocks raises short-term rates to curb inflation while lowering long-term rates to support indebted households, speeding investment and output recovery while increasing consumption inequality.

This paper examines how climate change affects income inequality across US states. Using a new climate-inequality VAR and a century of daily temperature data, it shows that shifts across the full temperature distribution—not just average warming—have diverse effects on within-state inequality.

Pressures on the CORRA benchmark can emerge from the interaction of client borrowing behavior, dealer balance sheet constraints, even if the level of settlement balances is in a range deemed sufficient to meet the requirement of the payment system and the prudential demand of its members.

Rising housing costs are leading to an increasing share of first-time homebuyers seeking financial support from their parents. Specifically, Canada has experienced a noticeable rise in instances of parents co-signing mortgages with their adult children. This practice allows buyers to purchase more expensive homes—but it can also make both parties vulnerable to financial disruptions.

As the economy emerges from a crisis, macroeconomic policy confronts a dilemma: a protracted stimulus can foster a more inclusive labor market recovery, yet risks igniting inflation that ultimately undermines workers’ welfare through real income erosion. This tension amplifies in the presence of the ZLB and aggregate capacity constraints. We embed this insight into a quantitative model of the US economy.

This note finds evidence of a positive and nonlinear relationship between mortgage interest costs (MIC) and rental inflation: the impact of MIC on rents is small when population growth is near its historical norm, but significantly stronger during periods of rapid population growth.

Mortgage debt represents over 70% of all Canadian household financial liabilities, and the performance of these debts is critical to the health of the financial system. We explore the relationships between mortgage arrears and key macroeconomic fundamentals such as labour market variables, interest rates, house prices and inflation. We then develop a framework to assess future household mortgage stress.