Bio
Alexandra Lai is Senior Director (Regulatory Policy) in the Financial Stability Department at the Bank of Canada. In this role, she provides leadership to the development of policy advice on domestic and international regulatory policy, with a focus on regulated financial institutions (e.g., the bank resolution regime and other policy initiatives aimed at ending “too big to fail”), shadow banking, the federal housing finance framework, macroprudential policy, and the provision of central bank liquidity. Ms Lai holds a PhD in Economics from Queen’s University. She joined the Bank of Canada in 2000 and has held positions within the Bank in several areas, including Special Studies (Research), FMI oversight, and regulatory policy.
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Staff Working Papers
Payments systems play a fundamental role in an economy by providing the mechanisms through which payments arising from transactions can be settled. The existing literature on the economics of payments systems is large but loosely organized, in that each model uses a distinct set-up and sometimes a distinct equilibrium concept.
Payments systems are typically characterized by some degree of tiering, with upstream firms (clearing agents) providing settlement accounts to downstream institutions that wish to clear and settle payments indirectly in these systems (indirect clearers).
The authors examine the impact of multinational enterprises (MNEs) on exchange rate pass-through in an environment where an MNE engages in Cournot (quantity) competition with domestic and foreign rivals.
Many countries prohibit large shareholdings in their domestic banks.The authors examine whether such a restriction restrains competition in a duopolistic loan market. Blockholders may influence managers' output decisions by choosing capital structure, as in Brander and Lewis (1986).
The magnitude and frequency of recent financial crises underscore the importance of understanding financial instability for the purpose of crisis prevention and crisis management.
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.
