Staff Working Papers

• A Macroprudential Theory of Foreign Reserve Accumulation

  Staff Working Paper 2019-43 Fernando Arce, Julien Bengui, Javier Bianchi

  This paper proposes a theory of foreign reserves as macroprudential policy. We study an open-economy model of financial crises in which pecuniary externalities lead to overborrowing, and show that by accumulating international reserves, the government can achieve the constrained-efficient allocation.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Balance of payments and components, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Foreign reserves management, International financial markets JEL Code(s): D, D5, D52, D6, D62, F, F3, F34

• Amazon Effects in Canadian Online Retail Firm-Product-Level Data

  Staff Working Paper 2019-42 Alex Chernoff

  I use firm-product-level data for Canadian online retailers to study how product scope (the average number of product categories per firm) evolved from 1999 to 2012. During this period, product scope dropped monotonically from 59 to 5 product categories.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Firm dynamics, Service Sector JEL Code(s): D, D2, D22, L, L1, L11, L8, L81

• Trade Flows and Exchange Rates: Importers, Exporters and Products

  Staff Working Paper 2019-41 Michael Devereux, Wei Dong, Ben Tomlin

  Using highly disaggregated transaction-level trade data, we document the importance of new firm level trade partner relationships and the addition of new products to existing relationships in driving long-run import flows.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Firm dynamics, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F1, F4

• The Economics of Cryptocurrencies—Bitcoin and Beyond

  Staff Working Paper 2019-40 Jonathan Chiu, Thorsten Koeppl

  Since the creation of Bitcoin in 2009, over 2,000 cryptocurrencies have been issued. We evaluate how well a cryptocurrency functions as a payment system.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Digital Currencies and Fintech, Monetary Policy, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E5, L, L5

• The BoC-BoE Sovereign Default Database: What’s New in 2019?

  Staff Working Paper 2019-39 David Beers, Patrisha de Leon-Manlagnit

  Until recently, few efforts have been made to systematically measure and aggregate the nominal value of the different types of sovereign government debt in default. To help fill this gap, the Bank of Canada (BoC) developed a comprehensive database of sovereign defaults that is posted on its website and updated in partnership with the Bank of England (BoE).

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Debt Management, Development economics, Financial stability, International financial markets JEL Code(s): F, F3, F34, G, G1, G10, G14, G15

• What Does Structural Analysis of the External Finance Premium Say About Financial Frictions?

  Staff Working Paper 2019-38 Jelena Zivanovic

  I use a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) with sign restrictions to provide conditional evidence on the behavior of the US external finance premium (EFP). The results indicate that the excess bond premium, a proxy for the EFP, reacts countercyclically to supply and monetary policy shocks and procyclically to demand shocks.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Economic models, Financial markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E44

• Bank Runs, Portfolio Choice, and Liquidity Provision

  Staff Working Paper 2019-37 Toni Ahnert, Mahmoud Elamin

  After the financial crisis of 2007–09, many jurisdictions introduced new banking regulations to make banks more resilient and less likely to fail. These regulations included tighter limits for the quality and quantity of bank capital and introduced minimum standards for liquidity. But what was the impact of these changes?

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Wholesale funding JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G2, G21

• No Double Standards: Quantifying the Impact of Standard Harmonization on Trade

  Staff Working Paper 2019-36 Julia Schmidt, Walter Steingress

  Product standards are omnipresent in industrialized societies. Though standardization can be beneficial for domestic producers, divergent product standards have been categorized as a major obstacle to international trade. This paper quantifies the effect of standard harmonization on trade flows and characterizes the extent to which it changes the cost and demand structure of exporting.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F1, F13, F14, F15, L, L1, L15

• The Simple Economics of Global Fuel Consumption

  Staff Working Paper 2019-35 Doga Bilgin, Reinhard Ellwanger

  This paper presents a structural framework of the global oil market that relies on information on global fuel consumption to identify flow demand for oil. We show that under mild identifying assumptions, data on global fuel consumption help to provide comparatively sharp insights on elasticities and other key structural parameters of the global oil market.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Economic models JEL Code(s): C, C5, C51, L, L7, L71, Q, Q4, Q41, Q43

• Exchange Rates, Retailers, and Importing: Theory and Firm-Level Evidence

  Staff Working Paper 2019-34 Alex Chernoff, Patrick Alexander

  We develop a model with firm heterogeneity in importing and cross-border shopping among consumers. Exchange-rate appreciations lower the cost of imported goods, but also lead to more cross-border shopping; hence, the net impact on aggregate retail prices and sales is ambiguous.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, International topics, Service Sector JEL Code(s): F, F1, F10, F14, L, L8, L81