Sermin Gungor
Research Advisor
- Ph. D. in Economics, Emory University, Atlanta (2010)
- M.Sc. in Financial Economics and Econometrics, University of Essex, Essex, U.K. (2001)
- B.A. in Economics, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey (2000)
Bio
Sermin is a Research Advisor in the Financial Markets Department. Her primary research interests cover a range of topics including non-parametric tests of financial models, interactions across fixed-income markets, the role of funding conditions on asset prices, effects of monetary policy on financial and macroeconomic conditions. She has published scholarly articles in academic journals including the Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Journal of Financial Econometrics, Journal of Empirical Finance, Canadian Journal of Economics. Sermin worked as an Associate Visiting Professor at the University of Western Ontario during the 2017-2019 academic years. She received her doctorate in Economics from Emory University and Master of Science in Financial Economics and Econometrics from the University of Essex.
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Staff analytical notes
Have Liquidity and Trading Activity in the Canadian Corporate Bond Market Deteriorated?
Since 2010, the liquidity of corporate bonds has improved on average, while their trading activity has remained stable. We find that the liquidity and trading activity of riskier bonds or bonds issued by firms in different sectors have been stable. However, the liquidity and trading activity of bonds issued by banks have improved. We observe short-lived episodes of deterioration in liquidity and trading activity.Have Liquidity and Trading Activity in the Canadian Provincial Bond Market Deteriorated?
In recent years, the liquidity in the secondary market for Canadian provincial bonds was a concern for many market participants. We find that a proxy for the bid-ask spread has deteriorated modestly since 2010. However, a proxy for price impact as well as measures of trade size, the number of trades and turnover have been stable or improved since 2010. This holds for bonds issued by different provinces and for bonds of different ages and sizes. Alberta bonds provide an interesting case study: After the fall in oil prices in 2014–15, the province increased its borrowing in the bond market and its credit rating was downgraded. Yet trading activity for Alberta bonds increased significantly. Overall, we interpret the evidence as a sign of resilience in the provincial bond market.Has Liquidity in Canadian Government Bond Markets Deteriorated?
This note presents measures of liquidity used by the Bank of Canada to monitor market conditions and discusses recent trends in Government of Canada (GoC) fixed-income market liquidity. Our results indicate that the Bank’s measures have improved since the financial crisis. Furthermore, GoC market liquidity deteriorated following several stressful events: the euro crisis in 2011, the taper tantrum in 2013 and the oil price shock in 2015. In all three cases, the deterioration remained within historical norms and liquidity returned to normal levels afterwards.
Staff discussion papers
Government of Canada Securities in the Cash, Repo and Securities Lending Markets
This paper documents the properties of Government of Canada securities in cash, repo and securities lending transactions over their life cycle. By tracking every security from issuance to maturity, we are able to highlight inter-linkages between the markets for cash and for specific securities.Staff working papers
Small‐Sample Tests for Stock Return Predictability with Possibly Non‐Stationary Regressors and GARCH‐Type Effects
We develop a simulation-based procedure to test for stock return predictability with multiple regressors. The process governing the regressors is left completely free and the test procedure remains valid in small samples even in the presence of non-normalities and GARCH-type effects in the stock returns.Funding Liquidity, Market Liquidity and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns
Following theory, we check that funding risk connects illiquidity, volatility and returns in the cross-section of stocks. We show that the illiquidity and volatility of stocks increase with funding shocks, while contemporaneous returns decrease with funding shocks.Bootstrap Tests of Mean-Variance Efficiency with Multiple Portfolio Groupings
We propose double bootstrap methods to test the mean-variance efficiency hypothesis when multiple portfolio groupings of the test assets are considered jointly rather than individually.Search-for-Yield in Canadian Fixed-Income Mutual Funds and Monetary Policy
This paper investigates the effects of monetary policy on the risk-taking behavior of fixed-income mutual funds in Canada. We consider different measures of the stance of monetary policy and investigate active variation in mutual funds’ risk exposure in response to monetary policy.Multivariate Tests of Mean-Variance Efficiency and Spanning with a Large Number of Assets and Time-Varying Covariances
We develop a finite-sample procedure to test for mean-variance efficiency and spanning without imposing any parametric assumptions on the distribution of model disturbances.Testing Linear Factor Pricing Models with Large Cross-Sections: A Distribution-Free Approach
We develop a finite-sample procedure to test the beta-pricing representation of linear factor pricing models that is applicable even if the number of test assets is greater than the length of the time series. Our distribution-free framework leaves open the possibility of unknown forms of non-normalities, heteroskedasticity, time-varying correlations, and even outliers in the asset returns.Bank publications
Bank of Canada Review articles
May 11, 2017
The Life Cycle of Government of Canada Bonds in Core Funding Markets
Data on the use of government securities in the repo, securities lending and cash markets suggest there are bond market clienteles in Canada. Shorter-term bonds are more prevalent in the repo market, while longer-maturity securities are more active in the securities lending market—consistent with the preferred habitat hypothesis. These results could help design better debt-management strategies and more-effective policies to maintain well-functioning financial markets.Journal publications
- “The Life-cycle of Trading Activity and Liquidity of Government of Canada Bonds: Evidence from Cash, Repo, and Securities Lending Markets” (with N. Bulusu), Canadian Journal of Economics, forthcoming.
- “Small-Sample Tests for Stock Return Predictability with Possibly Non-Stationary Regressors and GARCH-Type Effects”
(with R. Luger), Journal of Econometrics, forthcoming. - “Exact Inference in Predictive Quantile Regressions with an Application to Stock Returns”
(with R. Luger), Journal of Financial Econometrics, forthcoming. - "Multivariate Tests of Mean-Variance Efficiency and Spanning with Large Number of Assets and Time-Varying Covariances"
(with R. Luger), Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 34:2, 161-175, 2016. - “Bootstrap Tests of Mean-Variance Efficiency with Multiple Portfolio Groupings”
(with R. Luger), L'Actualité économique, 91, 35-65, 2015. - "Testing Linear Factor Pricing Models With Large Cross Sections: A Distribution-Free Approach"
(with R. Luger), Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 31:1, 66-77, 2013. - "Exact Distribution-Free Tests of Mean-Variance Efficiency"
(with R. Luger), Journal of Empirical Finance, 16, 816-829, 2009.