COVID-19 Hasn’t Killed Merchant Acceptance of Cash: Results from the 2023 Merchant Acceptance Survey Staff Discussion Paper 2024-2 Angelika Welte, Katrina Talavera, Liang Wang, Joy Wu The Bank of Canada’s Merchant Acceptance Survey finds that 96% of small and medium-sized businesses in Canada accepted cash in 2023. Acceptance of debit and credit cards has increased to 89%, and acceptance of digital payments has also increased. However, Canada is far from being a cashless society. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C8, D, D2, D22, E, E4, L, L2
Consumer Credit Regulation and Lender Market Power Staff Working Paper 2024-36 Zachary Bethune, Joaquín Saldain, Eric R. Young We investigate the welfare consequences of consumer credit regulation in a dynamic, heterogeneous-agent model with endogenous lender market power. Lenders post credit offers and borrowers—some informed and others uninformed—apply for credit. We calibrate the model to match characteristics of the unsecured consumer credit market and use the calibrated model to evaluate interest rate ceilings. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Financial markets, Interest rates JEL Code(s): D, D1, D15, D4, D43, D6, D60, D8, D83, E, E2, E21, G, G5, G51
Decentralized finance: Innovations and challenges Staff Analytical Note 2023-15 Jonathan Chiu, Hanna Yu Decentralized finance surged in popularity around 2020. We explore its value and limitations and highlight some potential regulatory concerns. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Financial stability, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): G, G1, G2
Examining the Impact of Home Purchase Restrictions on China’s Housing Market Staff Working Paper 2021-18 Zhentong Lu, Sisi Zhang, Jian Hong How do “cooling measures” in the housing market—policies aimed to stabilize prices—affect the market? We use a structural model of housing demand and price competition among developers to evaluate China’s home purchase restriction policies implemented in 2010–11. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Housing, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): O, O1, O18, R, R3, R31, R38
October 22, 2006 ToTEM: The Bank of Canada's New Projection and Policy-Analysis Model Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2006 Paul Fenton, Stephen Murchison The Terms-of-Trade Economic Model, or ToTEM, replaced the Quarterly Projection Model (QPM) in December 2005 as the Bank's principal projection and policy-analysis model for the Canadian economy. Benefiting from advances in economic modelling and computer power, ToTEM builds on the strengths of QPM, allowing for optimizing behaviour on the part of firms and households, both in and out of steady state, in a multi-product environment. The authors explain the motivation behind the development of ToTEM, provide an overview of the model and its calibration, and present several simulations to illustrate its key properties, concluding with some indications of how the model is expected to evolve going forward. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models
Do Mechanical Filters Provide a Good Approximation of Business Cycles? Technical Report No. 78 Alain Guay, Pierre St-Amant In this paper, the authors examine how well the Hodrick-Prescott filter (HP) and the band-pass filter recently proposed by Baxter and King (BK) extract the business-cycle component of macroeconomic time series. Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C5, C52, E, E3, E32
Public and Private Money Creation for Distributed Ledgers: Stablecoins, Tokenized Deposits, or Central Bank Digital Currencies? Staff Working Paper 2024-35 Jonathan Chiu, Cyril Monnet This paper explores the implications of introducing digital public and private monies (e.g. tokenized central bank digital currency [CBDC] or tokenized deposits) for stablecoins and illicit crypto transactions. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Financial stability, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E5, E50, E58
December 23, 2004 A Taxonomy of Market Efficiency Financial System Review - December 2004 Gregory Bauer Content Type(s): Publications, Financial System Review articles
A Framework to Assess Vulnerabilities Arising from Household Indebtedness Using Microdata Staff Discussion Paper 2012-3 Ramdane Djoudad Rising levels of household indebtedness have created concerns about the vulnerabilities of households to adverse economic shocks and the impact on financial stability. To assess these risks, the author presents a formal stress-testing framework that uses microdata to simulate how various economic shocks affect the distribution of the debt-service ratio (DSR) for the household sector. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability JEL Code(s): C, C1, C15, C3, C31, D, D1, D14, E, E5, E51
How big is cash-futures basis trading in Canada’s government bond market? Staff Analytical Note 2024-16 Andreas Uthemann, Rishi Vala Cash-futures basis trading has grown alongside the Government of Canada bond futures market. We examine this growth over time in relation to Government of Canada bond and repurchase agreement markets and provide details on the type of market participants that engage in this type of trading activity. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial stability, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, D47, D5, D53, G, G1, G12, G2, G23