Speed Segmentation on Exchanges: Competition for Slow Flow Staff Working Paper 2018-3 Lisa Anderson, Emad Andrews, Baiju Devani, Michael Mueller, Adrian Walton In 2015, TSX Alpha, a Canadian stock exchange, implemented a speed bump for marketable orders and an inverted fee structure as part of a redesign. We find no evidence that this redesign impacted market-wide measures of trading costs or contributed appreciably to segmenting retail order flow away from other Canadian venues with a maker-taker fee structure. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14, G2, G24
How Do Central Bank Projections and Forward Guidance Influence Private-Sector Forecasts? Staff Working Paper 2018-2 Monica Jain, Christopher S. Sutherland We construct a 23-country panel data set to consider the effect of central bank projections and forward guidance on private-sector forecast disagreement. We find that central bank projections and forward guidance matter mainly for private-sector forecast disagreement surrounding upcoming policy rate decisions and matter less for private-sector macroeconomic forecasts. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Central bank research, Inflation targets, Monetary policy, Monetary policy communications, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): D, D8, D83, E, E3, E37, E5, E52, E58
Capital-Goods Imports and US Growth Staff Working Paper 2018-1 Michele Cavallo, Anthony Landry Capital-goods imports have become an increasing source of growth for the U.S. economy. To understand this phenomenon, we build a neoclassical growth model with international trade in capital goods in which agents face exogenous paths of total factor and investment-specific productivity measures. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Productivity, Trade integration JEL Code(s): E, E2, F, F2, F4, O, O3, O4
The Evolution of Unobserved Skill Returns in the U.S.: A New Approach Using Panel Data Staff Working Paper 2017-61 Lance Lochner, Youngmin Park, Youngki Shin Economists disagree about the factors driving the substantial increase in residual wage inequality in the United States over the past few decades. To identify changes in the returns to unobserved skills, we make a novel assumption about the dynamics of skills (especially among older workers) rather than about the stability of skill distributions across cohorts, as is standard. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Labour markets JEL Code(s): C, C2, C23, J, J2, J24, J3, J31
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