Financial markets

• Borrowing Costs for Government of Canada Treasury Bills

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-28 Jessica Lee, Jabir Sandhu, Adrian Walton

  The cost of borrowing Government of Canada treasury bills (t-bills) in the repurchase (repo) market is mainly explained by the relationship between the parties involved. Some pairs of parties conduct most of their repos for t-bills rather than bonds, and at relatively high borrowing costs. We speculate that these pairs have formed a mutually beneficial service relationship in which one party consistently receives t-bills, while the other receives cash at a relatively cheap rate.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G10, G11, G12, G2, G20, G21, G23, G3, G32

• What Does Structural Analysis of the External Finance Premium Say About Financial Frictions?

  Staff Working Paper 2019-38 Jelena Zivanovic

  I use a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) with sign restrictions to provide conditional evidence on the behavior of the US external finance premium (EFP). The results indicate that the excess bond premium, a proxy for the EFP, reacts countercyclically to supply and monetary policy shocks and procyclically to demand shocks.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Economic models, Financial markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E44

• Bridging Canadian Business Lending and Market-Based Risk Measures

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-26 Guillaume Ouellet Leblanc, Maxime Leboeuf

  Lending to business is central to economic growth because it supports investment by firms. Knowing how market participants view risk in the financial system can give the Bank of Canada information about future growth in business loans. In this note, we look at three market-based risk measures and find that sudden increases in the perception of risk in the Canadian banking system are associated with a weaker outlook for business loans and real gross domestic product.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Financial markets JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E44, G, G1, G12

• Using Exchange-Traded Funds to Measure Liquidity in the Canadian Corporate Bond Market

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-25 Rohan Arora, Guillaume Ouellet Leblanc, Jabir Sandhu, Jun Yang

  We introduce a new proxy for measuring corporate bond liquidity, using the price of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that hold corporate bonds. It measures the average liquidity across 900 corporate bonds every day, many more than other proxies used in previous Bank of Canada analysis. The new proxy nonetheless paints a very similar picture of liquidity conditions and confirms the previous findings: the liquidity of bonds has generally improved since 2010.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G14

• Relative Value of Government of Canada Bonds

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-23 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Jabir Sandhu, Adrian Walton

  Government of Canada bonds in circulation that promise very similar payoffs can have different prices. We study the reason for these differences. Bonds that trade more often and earn high rental income in the repurchase agreement (repo) market tend to have higher prices. Bonds with longer tenors and times to maturity tend to have lower prices. This contrast between cheap and expensive bonds is important because trading volume and rental income can change rapidly, unlike tenor and time to maturity, which are stable.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Analytical Notes Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G10, G11, G12, G2, G23, G3, G32

• Are Long-Horizon Expectations (De-)Stabilizing? Theory and Experiments

  Staff Working Paper 2019-27 George Evans, Cars Hommes, Bruce McGough, Isabelle Salle

  Most models in finance assume that agents make trading plans over the infinite future. We consider instead that they are boundedly rational and may only form forecasts over a limited horizon.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Asset Pricing, Central bank research, Economic models, Financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C9, C92, D, D8, D84, E

• Lending Standards, Productivity and Credit Crunches

  Staff Working Paper 2019-25 Jonathan Swarbrick

  We propose a macroeconomic model in which adverse selection in investment drives the amplification of macroeconomic fluctuations, in line with prominent roles played by the credit crunch and collapse of the asset-backed security market in the financial crisis.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credit and credit aggregates, Financial markets, Financial stability, Interest rates, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E2, E22, E3, E32, E4, E44, G, G0, G01

• Canadian Securities Lending Market Ecology

  Staff Discussion Paper 2019-5 Jesse Johal, Joanna Roberts, John Sim

  This is the fourth of the Financial Markets Department’s descriptions of Canadian financial industrial organization. The paper discusses the organization of the securities lending market in Canada. We outline key characteristics of securities lending contracts, participants in the securities lending market, the market infrastructures that support securities lending activities, and aggregated statistics describing the Canadian market.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Discussion Papers Topic(s): Financial Institutions, Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G18, G2, G21, G23

• Systemic Risk and Collateral Adequacy

  Staff Working Paper 2019-23 Radoslav Raykov

  Many derivatives markets use collateral requirements calculated with industry-standard but dated methods that are not designed with systemic risk in mind. This paper explores whether the conservative nature of conventional collateral requirements outweighs their lack of consideration of systemic risk.

  Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Financial Institutions, Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G10, G2, G20
• June 17, 2019

  Flexible Exchange Rates, Commodity Prices and Price Stability

  Remarks Lawrence L. Schembri Economics Society of Northern Alberta (ESNA) Edmonton, Alberta

  Deputy Governor Lawrence Schembri speaks before the Economics Society of Northern Alberta (ESNA).

  Content Type(s): Press, Speeches Topic(s): Exchange rate regimes, Exchange rates, Financial markets, Inflation targets, Monetary policy framework