Posts

• January 1, 2021

  About legal tender

  Find out what “legal tender” means, why legal tender status changes, and how to redeem older bank notes.

  Content Type(s): Explainers Subject(s): Currency, Bank notes
• December 31, 2020

  Research Update - December 2020

  This monthly newsletter features the latest research publications by Bank of Canada economists including external publications and working papers published on the Bank of Canada’s website.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Research newsletters

• Consumer Credit with Over-optimistic Borrowers

  Staff working paper 2020-57 Florian Exler, Igor Livshits, James (Jim) C. MacGee, Michèle Tertilt

  When lenders cannot directly identify behavioural and rational borrowers, they use type scoring to track the likelihood of a borrower’s type. This leads to the partial pooling of borrowers, which results in rational borrowers subsidizing borrowing costs for behavioural borrowers. This, in turn, reduces the effectiveness of regulatory policies that target mistakes by behavioural borrowers.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E4, E49, G, G1, G18, K, K3, K35 Research Theme(s): Financial system, Financial stability and systemic risk, Financial system regulation and oversight, Household and business credit, Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework and transmission

• Losing Contact: The Impact of Contactless Payments on Cash Usage

  Staff working paper 2020-56 Marie-Hélène Felt

  Contactless payment cards are a competitive alternative to cash. Using Canadian panel data from 2010 to 2017, this study investigates whether contactless credit cards are an important contributor to the decline in the transactional use of cash. 

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): C, C3, C33, D, D1, D12, E, E4, E41 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Econometric, statistical and computational methods, Money and payments, Cash and bank notes, Retail payments

• Implementation and Effectiveness of Extended Monetary Policy Tools: Lessons from the Literature

  Staff discussion paper 2020-16 Grahame Johnson, Sharon Kozicki, Romanos Priftis, Lena Suchanek, Jonathan Witmer, Jing Yang

  This paper summarizes the literature on the performance of various extended monetary policy tools when conventional policy rates are constrained by the effective lower bound. We highlight issues that may arise when these tools are used by central banks of small open economies.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, E58, E6, E63 Research Theme(s): Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework and transmission, Monetary policy tools and implementation

• A Reference Guide for the Business Outlook Survey

  Staff discussion paper 2020-15 David Amirault, Naveen Rai, Laurent Martin

  The Business Outlook Survey (BOS) has become an important part of monetary policy deliberations at the Bank of Canada and is also well known in Canadian policy and financial circles. This paper compiles more than 20 years of experience conducting the BOS and serves as a comprehensive reference manual.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers JEL Code(s): C, C8, C83, D, D2, D22, E, E3, E32 Research Theme(s): Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework and transmission, Real economy and forecasting
• December 18, 2020

  Operational details for upcoming secondary market purchases of Government of Canada securities (January 4-15)

  As previously announced, the Bank of Canada (the Bank) launched on April 1, 2020 a program to purchase Government of Canada securities in the secondary market – the Government Bond Purchase Program (GBPP). The GBPP operations for the two-week period beginning January 4, 2021 are announced below.

  Content Type(s): Press, Market notices Source(s): Government of Canada Bond Purchase Program

• Strategic Uncertainty in Financial Markets: Evidence from a Consensus Pricing Service

  Staff working paper 2020-55 Lerby Ergun, Andreas Uthemann

  We look at the informational content of consensus pricing in opaque over-the-counter markets. We show that the availability of price data informs participants mainly about other participants’ valuations, rather than about the value of a financial security.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): C, C5, C58, D, D5, D53, D8, D83, G, G1, G12, G14 Research Theme(s): Financial markets and funds management, Market functioning, Market structure
• December 18, 2020

  Return to Standard Terms for Government of Canada Bond Auctions

  The Bank of Canada today announced a plan for a phased return to standard terms for auctions of Government of Canada nominal bonds and real return bonds by June 2021.

  Content Type(s): Press, Market notices

• Labor Market Policies During an Epidemic

  Staff working paper 2020-54 Serdar Birinci, Fatih Karahan, Yusuf Mercan, Kurt See

  We study the labour market and welfare effects of expanding unemployment insurance benefits and introducing payroll subsidies during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that both policies are complementary and are beneficial to different types of workers. Payroll subsidies preserve the employment of workers in highly productive jobs, while unemployment insurance replaces lost income for workers who experience inevitable job loss.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E6, E62, J, J6, J64 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Economic models, Monetary policy, Real economy and forecasting, Structural challenges, Demographics and labour supply