Credit and credit aggregates, Financial Institutions, Financial markets, Financial services, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, International financial markets, Lender of last resort, Market structure and pricing, Monetary policy implementation, Payment clearing and settlement systems
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The Financial Services Sector: An Update on Recent Developments
The Canadian financial industry continues to experience significant changes. This report provides an update on recent developments and re-examines a number of issues facing financial service providers that were identified in Technical Report No. 82. -
A Market Microstructure Analysis of Foreign Exchange Intervention in Canada
This paper clarifies the role and the impact of foreign exchange dealers in the relationship between foreign exchange intervention and nominal exchange rates using a unique dataset that disaggregates trades by dealer and by type of trade. -
Corporate Bond Spreads and the Business Cycle
This paper examines the predictive power of credit spreads from the corporate bond market. The high-yield bond spread and investment-grade spread can explain 68 per cent and 42 per cent of output variations one year ahead, while the term spread based on government debts can explain only 12 per cent of them. -
Modelling Financial Instability: A Survey of the Literature
The magnitude and frequency of recent financial crises underscore the importance of understanding financial instability for the purpose of crisis prevention and crisis management. -
Risk, Entropy, and the Transformation of Distributions
The exponential family, relative entropy, and distortion are methods of transforming probability distributions. We establish a link between those methods, focusing on the relation between relative entropy and distortion. -
The Microstructure of Multiple-Dealer Equity and Government Securities Markets: How They Differ
Although dealership government and equity securities have, on the surface, similar market structures, the author demonstrates that some subtle differences exist between them that are likely to significantly affect the way market-makers trade, and as such have an impact on the liquidity that they provide. -
The Effects of Bank Consolidation on Risk Capital Allocation and Market Liquidity
This paper investigates the effects of financial market consolidation on risk capital allocation in a financial institution and the implications for market liquidity in dealership markets. We show that an increase in financial market consolidation can have ambiguous effects on liquidity in foreign exchange and government securities markets. -
Asset Allocation Using Extreme Value Theory
This paper examines asset allocation strategies in an extreme value at risk (VaR) framework in which the risk measure is the p-quantile from the extreme value distribution. The main focus is on the allocation problem faced by an extremely risk-averse institution, such as a central bank. -
December 17, 2001
The Canadian Fixed-Income Market: Recent Developments and Outlook
The Canadian fixed-income market is in the midst of a structural transformation similar to those occurring in other national financial markets around the world. The authors examine recent developments and trends in the market and discuss their possible effects. The simultaneous shrinking of the federal government's financial requirements and steady rise in issues of corporate securities have significantly altered the composition of Canada's fixed-income market. Government of Canada securities constitute a predominant portion of outstanding fixed-income securities and play a pivotal role, serving as benchmarks for the valuation of other traded securities and as a hedging vehicle for market participants trying to control their exposure to risk. The reduced issuance of federal government securities has contributed to a decline in the liquidity of the benchmark market. This raises broader issues regarding the future of the Canadian fixed-income market, since the corporate market is still fairly underdeveloped and illiquid compared with that for Government of Canada issues. There are thus currently few benchmark and hedging alternatives. The federal government is, however, committed to preserving the integrity of the market for benchmark issues and is adopting initiatives to enhance market liquidity and alleviate some of the pressures on the effective supply of these securities. Another evolving trend in the market is the emergence of electronic trading platforms. These platforms have the potential to facilitate the price-discovery mechanism, increase cost efficiency, and improve the liquidity and transparency of the market. -
Why Do Central Banks Smooth Interest Rates?
It is commonly observed that central banks respond gradually to economic shocks, moving the interest rate in small discrete steps in the same direction over an extended period of time. This paper examines the empirical evidence regarding central banks' smoothing of interest rates, paying particular attention to the case of Canada.