L - Industrial Organization
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Market Structure and Cost Pass-Through in Retail
We examine the extent to which vertical and horizontal market structure can together explain incomplete retail pass-through. -
November 15, 2012
Access, Competition and Risk in Centrally Cleared Markets
Central counterparties can make over-the-counter markets more resilient and reduce systemic risk by mitigating and managing counterparty credit risk. These benefits are maximized when access to central counterparties is available to a wide range of market participants. In an over-the-counter market, there is an important trade-off between risk and competition. A model of an over-the-counter market shows how risk and competition could be influenced by the incentives of market participants as they move to central clearing. In a centrally cleared market, there may be less risk when participation is high. This helps to explain why regulators have put in place requirements for fair, open and risk-based access criteria.
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Price Negotiation in Differentiated Products Markets: Evidence from the Canadian Mortgage Market
This paper measures market power in a decentralized market where contracts are determined through a search and negotiation process. The mortgage industry has many institutional features which suggest competitiveness: homogeneous contracts, negotiable rates, and, for a given consumer, common lending costs across lenders. -
Natural Monopoly and Distorted Competition: Evidence from Unbundling Fiber-Optic Networks
Can regulation solve problems arising from a natural monopoly? This paper analyzes whether “unbundling,” referring to regulations that enforce sharing of natural monopolistic infrastructure, prevents entrants from building new infrastructure. -
The Sensitivity of Producer Prices to Exchange Rates: Insights from Micro Data
This paper studies the sensitivity of Canadian producer prices to the Canada-U.S. exchange rate. Using a unique product-level price data set, we estimate and analyze the impact of movements in the exchange rate on both domestic and export producer prices. -
May 17, 2012
Conference Summary: New Developments in Payments and Settlement
The Bank of Canada’s annual conference, held in November 2011, brought together leading researchers from universities, central banks and other institutions from around the world. Divided into four sessions plus two keynote addresses, the conference covered such topics as the use of cash and other means of payment in retail transactions, large-value payments systems, and […] -
Why Is Cash (Still) So Entrenched? Insights from the Bank of Canada’s 2009 Methods-of-Payment Survey
The authors present key insights from the Bank of Canada’s 2009 Methods-of-Payment survey. In the survey, about 6,800 participants completed a questionnaire with detailed information regarding their personal finances, as well as their use and perceptions of different payment methods. -
Price Competition and Concentration in Search and Negotiation Markets: Evidence from Mortgage Lending
This paper examines the impact of bank consolidation on mortgage rates in order to evaluate the extent to which mortgage markets are competitive. Mortgage markets are decentralized and so rates are determined through a search and negotiation process. -
Portfolio Considerations in Differentiated Product Purchases: An Application to the Japanese Automobile Market
Consumers often purchase more than one differentiated product, assembling a portfolio, which might potentially affect substitution patterns of demand and, as a consequence, oligopolistic firms’ pricing strategies.