Climate Variability and International Trade Staff Working Paper 2023-8 Geoffrey R. Dunbar, Walter Steingress, Ben Tomlin This paper quantifies the impact of hurricanes on seaborne international trade to the United States. Matching the timing of hurricane–trade route intersections with monthly U.S. port-level trade data, we isolate the unanticipated effects of a hurricane hitting a trade route using two separate identification schemes: an event study and a local projection. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Climate change, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, C5, F, F1, F14, F18, Q, Q5, Q54
Macroeconomic Disasters and Consumption Smoothing: International Evidence from Historical Data Staff Working Paper 2023-4 Lorenzo Pozzi, Barbara Sadaba Does consumption smoothing fundamentally decrease during macroeconomic disasters? This paper uses a large historical dataset (1870–2016) for 16 industrial economies to show that during macroeconomic disasters (e.g., wars, pandemics, depressions) aggregate consumption and income are significantly less decoupled than during normal times. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C2, C23, E, E2, E21
Forecasting Banks’ Corporate Loan Losses Under Stress: A New Corporate Default Model Technical Report No. 122 Gabriel Bruneau, Thibaut Duprey, Ruben Hipp We present a new corporate default model, one of the building blocks of the Bank of Canada’s bank stress-testing infrastructure. The model is used to forecast corporate loan losses of the Canadian banking sector under stress. Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Economic models, Financial institutions, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, C5, C52, C53, G, G1, G17, G2, G21, G28
Weather the Storms? Hurricanes, Technology and Oil Production Staff Working Paper 2022-36 Johan Brannlund, Geoffrey R. Dunbar, Reinhard Ellwanger, Matthew Krutkiewicz Do technological improvements mitigate the potential damages from extreme weather events? We show that hurricanes lower offshore oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and that stronger storms have larger impacts. Regulations enacted in 1980 that required improved offshore construction standards only modestly mitigated the production losses. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Climate change, Potential output JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, C23, Q, Q4, Q40, Q48, Q5, Q54
COVID-19, Containment and Consumption Staff Discussion Paper 2022-5 Tatjana Dahlhaus, Daniel Hyun, Antoine Poulin-Moore, Jaime Trujillo, Saarah Sheikh, Benjamin Straus We assess the impact of COVID-19 on consumption indicators by estimating the effects of government-mandated containment measures and of the willingness of individuals to voluntarily physically distance to prevent contagion. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Domestic demand and components JEL Code(s): C, C2, C23, D, D1, D12, E, E6, E65, I, I1, I18
Can the characteristics of new mortgages predict borrowers’ financial stress? Insights from the 2014 oil price decline Staff Analytical Note 2021-22 Olga Bilyk, Ken Chow, Yang Xu We study the relationship between characteristics of new mortgages and borrowers’ financial stress in Canada’s energy-intensive regions following the 2014 collapse in oil prices. We find that borrowers with limited home equity were more likely to have difficulty repaying debt. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability, Housing JEL Code(s): C, C2, C25, D, D1, D14, G, G2, G21, G5, G51, R, R2, R21
Payment Habits During COVID-19: Evidence from High-Frequency Transaction Data Staff Working Paper 2021-43 Tatjana Dahlhaus, Angelika Welte We examine how consumers have adjusted their payment habits during the COVID-19 pandemic. They seem to perform fewer transactions, spend more in each transaction, use less cash at the point of sale and withdraw cash from ATMs linked to their financial institution more often than from other ATMs. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Domestic demand and components, Payment clearing and settlement systems, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, C5, C55, D, D1, D12, E, E2, E21, E4, E42, E5, E52
Household financial vulnerabilities and physical climate risks Staff Analytical Note 2021-19 Thibaut Duprey, Colin Jones, Callie Symmers, Geneviève Vallée Natural disasters occur more often than before, potentially exposing households to financial distress. We study the intersection between household financial vulnerabilities and severe weather events. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Climate change, Credit and credit aggregates, Financial stability, Housing, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): C, C2, C21, C3, C38, D, D1, D14, Q, Q5, Q54
Estimating Large-Dimensional Connectedness Tables: The Great Moderation Through the Lens of Sectoral Spillovers Staff Working Paper 2021-37 Felix Brunner, Ruben Hipp Understanding the size of sectoral links is crucial to predicting the impact of a crisis on the whole economy. We show that statistical learning techniques substantially outperform traditional estimation techniques when measuring large networks of these links. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, C5, C52, E, E2, E23, E27
Evolving Temperature Dynamics in Canada: Preliminary Evidence Based on 60 Years of Data Staff Working Paper 2021-22 Robert Amano, Marc-André Gosselin, Julien McDonald-Guimond Are summers getting hotter? Do daily temperatures change more than they used to? Using daily Canadian temperature data from 1960 to 2020 and modern econometric methods, we provide economists and policy-makers evidence on the important climate change issue of evolving temperatures. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Climate change, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, Q, Q5, Q54