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In this article, author Michel Rochette of the Bank's Risk-Management Unit briefly describes the initiatives undertaken to identify, analyze, model, and manage the principal risks inherent in the transactions of the Exchange Fund Account (EFA), where the international reserves of the federal government are held. The author focuses on five types of risk: credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk, operational risk, and legal risk. In addition, the author presents the risk-management principles underlying the activities of the EFA and the governance structure of the Account.

In the last half-year, the economic expansion in Canada has become well established, supported by low inflation, highly stimulative monetary conditions, and a strong U.S. economy.

After the financial crisis of 2007–09, many jurisdictions introduced new banking regulations to make banks more resilient and less likely to fail. These regulations included tighter limits for the quality and quantity of bank capital and introduced minimum standards for liquidity. But what was the impact of these changes?

The scale of safe assets suggests a structural demand for a safe wealth share beyond transaction and liquidity roles. We study how investors achieve a reference wealth level by combining self-insurance and contingent liquidation of investment. Intermediaries improve upon autarky, insuring investors with poor self-insurance and limiting liquidation.

We study economies where firms acquire capital in primary markets then retrade it in secondary markets after information on idiosyncratic productivity arrives. Our secondary markets incorporate bilateral trade with search, bargaining and liquidity frictions.

Modeling and estimating persistent discrete data can be challenging. In this paper, we use an autoregressive panel probit model where the autocorrelation in the discrete variable is driven by the autocorrelation in the latent variable. In such a non-linear model, the autocorrelation in an unobserved variable results in an intractable likelihood containing high-dimensional integrals.

Governor Tiff Macklem talks about how important trade is for the economic recovery. He discusses what policymakers and business leaders can do to encourage growth in trade.

In this issue of the Financial System Review, the Bank of Canada’s Governing Council judges that the risks to the stability of Canada’s financial system are high and have increased markedly over the past six months, owing primarily to an escalation of the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area and a weaker global economic outlook.

Erratum: The data for Chart 7 on page 8 were plotted incorrectly. See revised chart.

While Government of Canada bond transactions of hedge funds are typically in the opposite direction to those of other market participants, during the peak period of market turmoil in March 2020, hedge funds sold these bonds, just as other market participants did. This shows that hedge funds can at times contribute to one-sided markets and amplify declines in market liquidity.

I analyze the relationship between carrying a credit card balance and future financial stress. I find that carrying a balance significantly increases the likelihood that credit card holders miss future debt payments. This likelihood tends to rise as credit card balances grow and are held for long periods.