Bio

Jonathan Chiu is a Senior Research Advisor in the Banking and Payments Department (BAP). His main research interests concern monetary theory, banking, payments and financial infrastructures. He also teaches monetary theory at Queen’s University. Jonathan received his PhD in economics from the University of Western Ontario.


Staff analytical notes

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Staff discussion papers

Central Bank Digital Currencies and Banking: Literature Review and New Questions

We review the nascent but fast-growing literature on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), focusing on their potential impacts on private banks. We evaluate these impacts in three areas of traditional banking: payments, lending and liquidity and maturity transformation. We also take a broader look at CBDCs and highlight two promising directions for future research.

Public Policy Objectives and the Next Generation of CPA Systems: An Analytical Framework

Staff Discussion Paper 2015-6 James Chapman, Jonathan Chiu, Sajjad Jafri, Héctor Pérez Saiz
The payments landscape in Canada is rapidly changing and will continue to evolve, fuelled by strong and persistent drivers. In Canada, the Canadian Payments Association (CPA) is on a path to modernize Canada’s core payment systems.

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Staff working papers

Understanding DeFi Through the Lens of a Production-Network Model

Staff Working Paper 2023-42 Jonathan Chiu, Thorsten Koeppl, Hanna Yu, Shengxing Zhang
We develop a production-network model to capture how decentralized finance (DeFi) has evolved across different sectors of financial services. The model allows us to measure the value added by different DeFi sectors and to study how the connections across the sectors influence token prices.

On the Fragility of DeFi Lending

Staff Working Paper 2023-14 Jonathan Chiu, Emre Ozdenoren, Kathy Yuan, Shengxing Zhang
We develop a dynamic model to capture key features of decentralized finance lending. We identify a price-liquidity feedback: the market outcome in any given period depends on agents' expectations about lending activities in future periods, with higher future price expectations leading to more lending and higher prices in that period.

Grasping De(centralized) Fi(nance) Through the Lens of Economic Theory

Staff Working Paper 2022-43 Jonathan Chiu, Charles M. Kahn, Thorsten Koeppl
We analyze the value proposition and limitations of decentralized finance (DeFi). Based on a distributed ledger and smart contracts, DeFi can guarantee the execution of financial contracts, potentially lowering the costs of intermediation and improving financial inclusion.

PayTech and the D(ata) N(etwork) A(ctivities) of BigTech Platforms

Staff Working Paper 2022-35 Jonathan Chiu, Thorsten Koeppl
Why do BigTech platforms introduce payment services? We explore this using a model in which a monopoly platform faces a trade-off between the costs associated with privacy concerns and the revenue from data services. We then analyze the feedback effects between data and payments.

Central Bank Digital Currency and Banking: Macroeconomic Benefits of a Cash-Like Design

Staff Working Paper 2021-63 Jonathan Chiu, Mohammad Davoodalhosseini
Should a CBDC be more like cash or bank deposits? An interest-bearing, cash-like CBDC not only makes payments more efficient but also increases total demand. This has positive effects on other transactions, inducing more deposit taking and lending and, thus, bank intermediation.

Safe Payments

In a cashless economy, would the private sector invest in the optimal level of safety in a deposit-based payment system? In general, because of externalities, the answer is no. While the private sector could over- or under-invest in safety, the government can use taxes or subsidies to correct private incentives.

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Bank publications

Bank of Canada Review articles

November 17, 2011

Liquidity Provision and Collateral Haircuts in Payments Systems

Central banks play a pivotal role in well-functioning payments systems by providing liquidity via collateralized lending. This article discusses the role of collateral and haircut policy in central bank lending, as well as the distinguishing features of the central bank’s policy relative to private sector practices. It presents a model that explicitly incorporates the unique role of central banks in the payments system and argues that central banks must consider how their haircut policies affect the relative price and liquidity of assets, the market’s asset allocation, and the likelihood of participants to default. Furthermore, under extraordinary circumstances, there is a rationale for the central bank to temporarily reduce haircuts or broaden the list of eligible collateral to mitigate the shortage of liquidity in the market.

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Journal publications

Journal articles

Other

Book chapter

Research