R - Urbanuralegionaleal Estate, and Transportation Economics

• The Effect of Mortgage Rate Resets on Debt: Evidence from TransUnion (Part I)

  Staff Analytical Note 2020-2 Katya Kartashova

  This note studies how decreases in mortgage rates affect the behaviour of borrowers in terms of spending on durable goods and repaying debt.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Housing, Interest rates, Monetary Policy, Transmission of monetary policy JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, D14, E, E4, E43, E5, E52, G, G2, G21, R, R3, R31

• A Spatial Model of Bank Branches in Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2020-4 Heng Chen, Matthew Strathearn

  This study explores the market structure of the Canadian banking industry at the postal-code level. In particular, we study the effect of geographic and industrial concentration on the density of bank branches.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Firm dynamics, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): L, L1, R, R3

• The Formation of House Price Expectations in Canada: Evidence from a Randomized Information Experiment

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-24 Marc-André Gosselin, Mikael Khan, Matthieu Verstraete

  We conduct a randomized information experiment leveraging the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations. We provide causal evidence that respondents revise both their short- and medium-term expectations of future house price growth in a way that is consistent with observed short-term momentum in house prices. However, empirically, house price growth tends to revert to its mean in the medium term.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Financial stability, Housing JEL Code(s): C, C9, D, D8, D84, R, R2, R21

• Disentangling the Factors Driving Housing Resales

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-12 Mikael Khan, Taylor Webley

  We use a recently developed model and loan-level microdata to decompose movements in housing resales since 2015. We find that fundamental factors, namely housing affordability and full-time employment, have had offsetting effects on resales over our study period.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Housing, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, E, E2, R, R2, R21

• Local Labor Markets in Canada and the United States

  Staff Working Paper 2019-12 David Albouy, Alex Chernoff, Chandler Lutz, Casey Warman

  We examine local labor markets in the United States and Canada from 1990 to 2011 using comparable household and business data. Wage levels and inequality rise with city population in both countries, albeit less in Canada.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Labour markets JEL Code(s): J, J2, J21, J3, J31, J6, J61, N, N3, N32, R, R1, R12

• Non-Resident Taxes and the Role of House Price Expectations

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-8 Mikael Khan, Matthieu Verstraete

  In recent years, the governments of Ontario and British Columbia have imposed taxes on purchases by non-Canadian residents of residential properties in certain jurisdictions.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Financial stability, Housing JEL Code(s): D, D8, D84, R, R2, R21

• Fundamental Drivers of Existing Home Sales in Canada

  Staff Discussion Paper 2018-16 Taylor Webley

  Existing home sales’ share of Canada’s economic pie has been rising in recent years, and variation around this trend has resulted in outsized contributions to changes in real gross domestic product (GDP). In this context, we use a cointegration framework to estimate the level of resale activity across the Canadian provinces that is supported by fundamentals—namely, full-time employment, housing affordability and migration flows—to help look through the volatility.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Discussion Papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Economic models, Housing JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, C23, E, E2, E27, R, R2, R21

• The Propagation of Regional Shocks in Housing Markets: Evidence from Oil Price Shocks in Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2018-56 Lutz Kilian, Xiaoqing Zhou

  How do global oil price shocks spread through Canada’s economy? With Canada’s regionally diverse economy in mind, we explore the implications of oil price shocks for Canadian housing markets and regional economies. We show that the belief that oil price shocks only matter in oil-rich regions is false.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Housing, International topics, Labour markets, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): F, F4, F43, Q, Q3, Q33, Q4, Q43, R, R1, R12, R3, R31

• Housing Price Network Effects from Public Transit Investment: Evidence from Vancouver

  Staff Working Paper 2018-18 Alex Chernoff, Andrea Craig

  In this paper, we estimate the effect on housing prices of the expansion of the Vancouver SkyTrain rapid transit network during the period 2001–11. We extend the canonical residential sorting equilibrium framework to include commuting time in the household utility function.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Asset Pricing, Economic models, Housing JEL Code(s): H, H4, H41, R, R2, R21, R4, R41

• Firm Heterogeneity, Technological Adoption, and Urbanization: Theory and Measurement

  Staff Working Paper 2017-27 Alex Chernoff

  This paper develops a model of firm heterogeneity, technological adoption, and urbanization. In the model, welfare is measured by household real income, and urbanization is measured by population density. I use the model to derive statistics that measure the effect of a new technology on productivity, welfare, and urbanization.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Economic models, Productivity, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): N, N6, N61, O, O1, O14, R, R1, R13