Staff analytical notes

• BoC-BoE Sovereign Default Database: What’s New in 2020?

  Staff Analytical Note 2020-13 David Beers, Elliot Jones, John Walsh

  The Boc–BoE database of sovereign debt defaults, published and updated annually by the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, provides comprehensive estimates of stocks of government obligations in default. The 2020 edition includes a new section examining the scale of domestic arrears in 2018.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Debt management, Development economics, Financial stability, International financial markets JEL Code(s): F, F3, F34, G, G1, G10, G14, G15

• CBDC adoption and usage: some insights from field and laboratory experiments

  Staff Analytical Note 2020-12 Janet Hua Jiang

  This note discusses insights from historical launches of new payment methods and related laboratory experiments on the potential adoption and use of a central bank digital currency in the Canadian context.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Central bank research, Digital currencies and fintech JEL Code(s): C, C9, E, E4, E5, E58

• Security of a CBDC

  Staff Analytical Note 2020-11 Cyrus Minwalla

  Security is an important element in ensuring public confidence in a central bank digital currency (CBDC). This note highlights the required security properties of a CBDC system and the challenges encountered with existing solutions, should the Bank of Canada choose to issue one.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Central bank research, Digital currencies and fintech JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, E5, E51, O, O3, O31

• Designing a CBDC for universal access

  Staff Analytical Note 2020-10 John Miedema, Cyrus Minwalla, Martine Warren, Dinesh Shah

  If the Bank of Canada issues a central bank digital currency, the technology should be designed for universal access.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Central bank research, Digital currencies and fintech JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, O, O3, O31

• Privacy in CBDC technology

  Staff Analytical Note 2020-9 Sriram Darbha, Rakesh Arora

  Privacy is a key aspect of a potential central bank digital currency system. We outline different technical choices to enact various privacy models while complying with the appropriate regulations. We develop a framework to evaluate privacy models and list key risks and trade-offs in privacy design.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Central bank research, Digital currencies and fintech JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, E5, E51, O, O3

• Household indebtedness risks in the wake of COVID‑19

  Staff Analytical Note 2020-8 Olga Bilyk, Anson T. Y. Ho, Mikael Khan, Geneviève Vallée

  COVID-19 presents challenges for indebted households. We assess these by drawing parallels between pandemics and natural disasters. Taking into account the financial health of the household sector when the pandemic began, we run model simulations to illustrate how payment deferrals and the labour market recovery will affect mortgage defaults.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Climate change, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Credit and credit aggregates, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability, Fiscal policy, Housing, Recent economic and financial developments, Sectoral balance sheet JEL Code(s): C, C2, C21, D, D1, D12, D14, E, E2, E24, E27, E6, E62, G, G2, G21, G28, R, R2