L1 - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

• 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

• 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

• Explaining the Interplay Between Merchant Acceptance and Consumer Adoption in Two-Sided Markets for Payment Methods

  Staff Working Paper 2019-32 Kim Huynh, Gradon Nicholls, Oleksandr Shcherbakov

  Recent consumer and merchant surveys show a decrease in the use of cash at the point of sale. Increasingly, consumers and merchants have access to a growing array of payment innovations as substitutes for cash.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital Currencies and Fintech, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial services JEL Code(s): C, C5, C51, L, L1, L13, L15, L8, L81, L9, L96

• Inference in Games Without Nash Equilibrium: An Application to Restaurants’ Competition in Opening Hours

  Staff Working Paper 2018-60 Erhao Xie

  This paper relaxes the Bayesian Nash equilibrium (BNE) assumption commonly imposed in empirical discrete choice games with incomplete information. Instead of assuming that players have unbiased/correct expectations, my model treats a player’s belief about the behavior of other players as an unrestricted unknown function. I study the joint identification of belief and payoff functions.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): C, C5, C57, L, L1, L13, L8, L85

• The Scale and Scope of Online Retail

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-19 Alex Chernoff

  This paper studies the growth of online retail over the period 1999–2012, using confidential firm-product-level data for Canada. The revenue of online retailers is decomposed into the contributions of product scope (the number of product categories) and product scale (average revenue per product category).

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Digital Currencies and Fintech, Firm dynamics, International topics JEL Code(s): D, D2, D22, L, L1, L11, L8, L81

• Customer Liquidity Provision in Canadian Bond Markets

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-12 Corey Garriott, Jesse Johal

  This analytical note assesses the prevalence of liquidity provision by institutional investors in Canadian bonds. We find that the practice is not prevalent in Canada. Customer liquidity provision is more prevalent for less liquid bonds, on days when liquidity is already expensive or when there are larger trading volumes. In our interpretation, Canadian dealers draw on customer liquidity as a supplementary source of liquidity and only when necessary, given its cost.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Financial Institutions, Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Market structure and pricing, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14, G2, G20, L, L1

• High-Frequency Trading and Institutional Trading Costs

  Staff Working Paper 2018-8 Marie Chen, Corey Garriott

  Using bond futures data, we test whether high-frequency trading (HFT) is engaging in back running, a trading strategy that can create costs for financial institutions. We reject the hypothesis of back running and find instead that HFT mildly improves trading costs for institutions.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14, G2, G20, L, L1, L10

• What Drives Episodes of Settlement Fails in the Government of Canada Bond Market?

  Staff Working Paper 2017-54 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, James Pinnington, Adrian Walton

  We study settlement fails for trades in the Government of Canada bond market. We find that settlement fails do not occur independently. Using a novel and comprehensive dataset, we examine three drivers of fails.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, G, G1, G2, G21, L, L1

• Do Canadian Broker-Dealers Act as Agents or Principals in Bond Trading?

  Staff Analytical Note 2017-11 Daniel Hyun, Jesse Johal, Corey Garriott

  Technology, risk tolerance and regulation may influence dealers to reduce their trading as principals (using their own balance sheets for sales and purchases of securities) in favour of agency trading (matching client trades).

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Financial Institutions, Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Market structure and pricing, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14, G2, G20, L, L1

• Fintech: Is This Time Different? A Framework for Assessing Risks and Opportunities for Central Banks

  Staff Discussion Paper 2017-10 Meyer Aaron, Francisco Rivadeneyra, Samantha Sohal

  We investigate the risks and opportunities to the mandates of central banks arising from fintech developments.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Discussion Papers Topic(s): Central bank research, Digital Currencies and Fintech, Financial Institutions, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, G, G1, G2, L, L1