L - Industrial Organization

• Why Is Cash (Still) So Entrenched? Insights from the Bank of Canada’s 2009 Methods-of-Payment Survey

  Staff Discussion Paper 2012-2 Carlos Arango, Dylan Hogg, Alyssa Lee

  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.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Financial services JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, E, E4, E41, L, L8, L81

• Price Competition and Concentration in Search and Negotiation Markets: Evidence from Mortgage Lending

  Staff Working Paper 2012-4 Jason Allen, Robert Clark, Jean-François Houde

  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.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services, Interest rates JEL Code(s): G, G2, L, L1

• Portfolio Considerations in Differentiated Product Purchases: An Application to the Japanese Automobile Market

  Staff Working Paper 2011-27 Naoki Wakamori

  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.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, L, L5, Q, Q5

• Discounting in Mortgage Markets

  Staff Working Paper 2011-3 Jason Allen, Robert Clark, Jean-François Houde

  This paper studies discounting in mortgage markets. Using transaction-level data on Canadian mortgages, we document that over time there's been an increase in the average discount, along with substantial dispersion.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G2, G21, L, L0

• Building New Plants or Entering by Acquisition? Estimation of an Entry Model for the U.S. Cement Industry

  Staff Working Paper 2011-1 Héctor Pérez Saiz

  In many industries, firms usually have two choices when expanding into new markets: They can either build a new plant (greenfield entry) or they can acquire an existing incumbent. In the U.S. cement industry, the comparative advantage (e.g., TFP or size) of entrants versus incumbents and regulatory entry barriers are important factors that determine the means of expansion.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Market structure and pricing, Productivity JEL Code(s): L, L1, L13, L4, L40, L6, L61

• The Effect of Exchange Rate Movements on Heterogeneous Plants: A Quantile Regression Analysis

  Staff Working Paper 2010-25 Ben Tomlin, Loretta Fung

  In this paper, we examine how the effect of movements in the real exchange rate on manufacturing plants depends on the plant's placement within the productivity distribution. Appreciations of the local currency expose domestic plants to more competition from abroad as export opportunities shrink and import competition intensifies.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Market structure and pricing, Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D2, D21, F, F1, L, L1, L16, L6, L60

• Exchange Rate Fluctuations, Plant Turnover and Productivity

  Staff Working Paper 2010-18 Ben Tomlin

  In a small open economy fluctuations in the real exchange rate can affect plant turnover, and thus aggregate productivity, by altering the makeup of plants that populate the market. An appreciation of the local currency increases the level of competition in the domestic market as import competition intensifies and export opportunities shrink, forcing less productive plants from the market and compelling new entrants to be more competitive than they otherwise would have been.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Market structure and pricing, Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D2, D21, D24, L, L1, L11

• Cross-border Mergers and Hollowing-out

  Staff Working Paper 2009-30 Oana Secrieru, Marianne Vigneault

  The purpose of our paper is to examine the profitability and social desirability of both domestic and foreign mergers in a location-quantity competition model, where we allow for the possibility of hollowing-out of the target firm. We refer to hollowing-out as the situation where the target firm is shut down following a merger with a domestic or foreign acquirer.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, International topics, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, D43, G, G3, G34, L, L1, L13, L4, L41

• The Role of Convenience and Risk in Consumers' Means of Payment

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-8 Carlos Arango, Varya Taylor

  Using data from a 2004 survey of the Canadian public, the authors study the role of convenience and risk in consumers' use of cash relative to debit and credit cards. The authors find that consumers who perceive debit cards and credit cards to be more convenient and less risky than cash use them more frequently.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Bank notes JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, L, L2

• Firm Size and Productivity

  Staff Working Paper 2008-45 Danny Leung, Césaire Meh, Yaz Terajima

  This paper examines the relationship between firm size and productivity. In contrast to previous studies, this paper offers evidence of the relationship not only from manufacturing firms, but from non-manufacturing firms as well.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Productivity JEL Code(s): L, L1, L11, L2, L25, O, O4, O47