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The Canadian financial system is vulnerable to cyber threats. But for many firms, cyber risk is difficult to quantify. We examine public information on past cyber incidents to better understand the current risk landscape and find that a holistic view is needed to fully grasp the nature of this risk.

Liquidity creation is a fundamental function of banks. It provides the public with easy access to funds. These funds are important because they allow households and businesses to consume and invest. In this note, we measure liquidity creation by Canadian financial institutions from the first quarter of 2012 to the second quarter of 2019, using a methodology suggested by Berger and Bouwman (2009) and known as the BB measure.

We use rich microdata to measure home equity extraction in Canada and track its evolution over time. We find home equity extraction has been rising in recent years and has likely contributed materially to dynamics in household spending.

We conduct a randomized information experiment leveraging the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations. We provide causal evidence that respondents revise both their short- and medium-term expectations of future house price growth in a way that is consistent with observed short-term momentum in house prices. However, empirically, house price growth tends to revert to its mean in the medium term.

The stability of the Canadian financial system, as well as its ability to support the Canadian economy, depends on the ability of financial institutions to absorb and manage major shocks. This is especially true for large banks, which perform services essential to the Canadian economy.

The ratio of non-financial corporate debt to gross domestic product in Canada has increased noticeably in recent years and is currently at an all-time high. In light of this development, we use a unique firm-level dataset to construct vulnerability indicators for the non-financial corporate sector in Canada.

Using new regulatory data on residential secured lending from Canadian banks, we assess the growth rate of home equity lines of credit (HELOCs).

We use a recently developed model and loan-level microdata to decompose movements in housing resales since 2015. We find that fundamental factors, namely housing affordability and full-time employment, have had offsetting effects on resales over our study period.

We create a hypothetical scenario to study the role bond funds play in intensifying shocks to the financial system. Using data from 2018 and 2007, we find that bond funds play a larger role now than they did in the past.

In recent years, the governments of Ontario and British Columbia have imposed taxes on purchases by non-Canadian residents of residential properties in certain jurisdictions.