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Online shopping is often guided by search platforms. Consumers type keywords into query boxes, and search platforms deliver a list of products. Consumers' attention is limited, and exhaustive searches are often impractical.

Using data on bank branch locations across Canada from 2008 to 2018, we explore an interesting aspect of bank branch competition—geographic concentration. We find that bank branch density does not correlate with geographic and market concentration; however, we do find strong correlation with postal-code demographics.

Dealers connect investors who want to buy or sell securities in financial markets. Over time, dealers and investors form trading networks to save time and resources. An emerging field of research investigates how networks form.

The number of workers who hold more than one job (a.k.a. multiple jobholders) has increased recently in Canada. While this seems to echo the view that non-standard work arrangements are becoming pervasive, the increase has in fact been trivial compared with the long-run rise of multiple jobholding that has occurred since the mid-1970s.

We document a substantial positive correlation of employment status between mothers and their children in the United States, linking data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the NLSY79 Children and Young Adults. After controlling for ability, education and wealth, a one-year increase in a mother’s employment is associated with six weeks more employment of her child on average.

We investigate the extent to which excess supply (demand) in labour markets contributes to a lower (higher) growth rate of average nominal wages for workers. Using panel methods on data from 10 advanced economies for 1992–2018, we produce reduced-form estimates of a wage Phillips curve specification that is consistent with a New Keynesian framework.

This is the fourth of the Financial Markets Department’s descriptions of Canadian financial industrial organization. The paper discusses the organization of the securities lending market in Canada. We outline key characteristics of securities lending contracts, participants in the securities lending market, the market infrastructures that support securities lending activities, and aggregated statistics describing the Canadian market.

Labour markets in Canada and around the world are evolving rapidly with the digital economy. Traditional data are adapting gradually but are not yet able to provide timely information on this evolution.

We show that issuing a deposit-like central bank digital currency (CBDC) with a proper interest rate would encourage banks to pay higher interest to keep their customers. Banks would then attract more deposits and offer more loans. Hence, a CBDC would not necessarily crowd out private banking.

Potential output is expected to grow on average at 1.8 per cent over 2019–21 and at 1.9 per cent in 2022. While the contribution of trend labour input to potential output growth is expected to decrease between 2019 and 2022, the contribution of trend labour productivity is projected to increase.