Browse research

Is obscuring prices always bad for consumers? The answer depends on the market structure and on the negotiating power between manufacturers and retailers.

We create a theoretical model of central bank asset purchases. The model helps explain how, in a crisis, these purchases ease pressures on investment dealers.

We explore the idea that the financial sector can be a source of non-fundamental risk to the rest of the economy. We also consider whether policy can be used to reduce this risk—either by increasing the supply of publicly backed safe assets or by reducing the demand for safe assets.

This paper explores how the Canadian futures market contributed to banks’ systemic risk during the 2008 financial crisis. It finds that core banks as a whole traded against the periphery, in this way increasing their risk of simultaneous losses.

We document a new empirical finding in the foreign exchange market: currency returns show systematic reversals around the benchmark fixings. Specifically, the US dollar, on average, appreciates in the hours before fixes and depreciates after fixes.

We assess how rising exports of US liquefied natural gas affect the convergence of natural gas prices worldwide. Our results may have implications for the development of future LNG export capacity in Canada.

“Reach for yield”—This is the commonly heard explanation for why pension plans shift their portfolios toward alternative assets. But we show that the new portfolios also hold more bonds, offer lower average returns and produce smaller and less volatile solvency deficits. These shifts are part of a broader strategy to reduce solvency risk.

Would a shift in trading in fixed-income markets—from over the counter (bilateral trading) to a centralized electronic platform—improve welfare? We use trade-level data on the secondary market for Government of Canada debt to answer this question.

How does government licensing affect selling on online platforms? We examine the impact of China’s 2015 Food Safety Law on sellers and buyers on Alibaba, the largest e-commerce platform in that country.

How is the stability of the financial sector affected by competition in the deposit market and by decisions banks make about transparency? We find that policies that aim to increase bank competition lead to higher bank deposit rates, increasing both withdrawal incentives and instability.