Which Model to Forecast the Target Rate? Staff Working Paper 2017-60 Bruno Feunou, Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Jianjian Jin Specifications of the Federal Reserve target rate that have more realistic features mitigate in-sample over-fitting and are favored in the data. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial markets, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43
Credit Risk Transfer and Bank Insolvency Risk Staff Working Paper 2017-59 Maarten van Oordt The present paper shows that, everything else equal, some transactions to transfer portfolio credit risk to third-party investors increase the insolvency risk of banks. This is particularly likely if a bank sells the senior tranche and retains a sufficiently large first-loss position. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Credit risk management, Financial institutions, Financial stability JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, G28, G3, G32
Variance Premium, Downside Risk and Expected Stock Returns Staff Working Paper 2017-58 Bruno Feunou, Ricardo Lopez Aliouchkin, Roméo Tedongap, Lai Xi We decompose total variance into its bad and good components and measure the premia associated with their fluctuations using stock and option data from a large cross-section of firms. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Asset pricing, Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12
Credit Crunches from Occasionally Binding Bank Borrowing Constraints Staff Working Paper 2017-57 Tom D. Holden, Paul Levine, Jonathan Swarbrick We present a model in which banks and other financial intermediaries face both occasionally binding borrowing constraints and costs of equity issuance. Near the steady state, these intermediaries can raise equity finance at no cost through retained earnings. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credit and credit aggregates, Economic models, Financial markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E22, E3, E32, E5, E51, G, G2
Bitcoin Awareness and Usage in Canada Staff Working Paper 2017-56 Christopher Henry, Kim Huynh, Gradon Nicholls There has been tremendous discussion of Bitcoin, digital currencies and FinTech. However, there is limited empirical evidence of Bitcoin’s adoption and usage. We propose a methodology to collect a nationally representative sample using the Bitcoin Omnibus Survey (BTCOS) to track the ubiquity and usage of Bitcoin in Canada. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C1, C12, E, E4
Risk-Neutral Moment-Based Estimation of Affine Option Pricing Models Staff Working Paper 2017-55 Bruno Feunou, Cédric Okou This paper provides a novel methodology for estimating option pricing models based on risk-neutral moments. We synthesize the distribution extracted from a panel of option prices and exploit linear relationships between risk-neutral cumulants and latent factors within the continuous time affine stochastic volatility framework. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Asset pricing, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12
What Drives Episodes of Settlement Fails in the Government of Canada Bond Market? Staff Working Paper 2017-54 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, James Pinnington, Adrian Walton We study settlement fails for trades in the Government of Canada bond market. We find that settlement fails do not occur independently. Using a novel and comprehensive dataset, we examine three drivers of fails. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, G, G1, G2, G21, L, L1
Competing Currencies in the Laboratory Staff Working Paper 2017-53 Janet Hua Jiang, Cathy Zhang We investigate competition between two intrinsically worthless currencies as a result of decentralized interactions between human subjects. We design a laboratory experiment based on a simple two-country, two-currency search model to study factors that affect circulation patterns and equilibrium selection. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Central bank research, Digital currencies and fintech JEL Code(s): C, C9, C92, D, D8, D83, E, E4, E40
Good Volatility, Bad Volatility and Option Pricing Staff Working Paper 2017-52 Bruno Feunou, Cédric Okou Advances in variance analysis permit the splitting of the total quadratic variation of a jump diffusion process into upside and downside components. Recent studies establish that this decomposition enhances volatility predictions, and highlight the upside/downside variance spread as a driver of the asymmetry in stock price distributions. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Asset pricing, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12
Identifying the Degree of Collusion Under Proportional Reduction Staff Working Paper 2017-51 Oleksandr Shcherbakov, Naoki Wakamori Proportional reduction is a common cartel practice in which cartel members reduce their output proportionately. We develop a method to quantify this reduction relative to a benchmark market equilibrium scenario and relate the reduction to the traditional conduct parameter. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): C, C3, C36, D, D2, D22, L, L4, L41