Market structure and pricing
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May 20, 2020
Decisive actions in difficult times
Deputy Governor Timothy Lane talks about the Bank’s decisive actions in response to COVID-19, and how these will help Canadians now and in the future. -
May 20, 2020
Policies for the Great Global Shutdown and Beyond
Deputy Governor Timothy Lane explains how the Bank is helping Canadian households and businesses weather the COVID-19 crisis, and how our actions today are laying a solid foundation for our future economic recovery. -
A Simple Method for Extracting the Probability of Default from American Put Option Prices
A put option is a financial contract that gives the holder the right to sell an asset at a specific price by (or at) a specific date. A put option can therefore provide its holder insurance against a large drop in the stock price. This makes the prices of put options an ideal source of information for a market-based measure of the probability of a firm’s default. -
Multi-Product Pricing: Theory and Evidence from Large Retailers in Israel
Standard theories of price adjustment are based on the problem of a single-product firm, and therefore they may not be well suited to analyze price dynamics in the economy with multiproduct firms. -
Optimal Taxation in Asset Markets with Adverse Selection
What is the optimal tax schedule in over-the-counter markets, e.g., those for corporate bonds? I find that an optimal tax schedule is often non-monotonic. For example, trading of some high-price assets should be subsidized, and trading of some low-price assets should be taxed. -
Do Protectionist Trade Policies Integrate Domestic Markets? Evidence from the Canada-U.S. Softwood Lumber Dispute
We consider the effects of protectionist trade policies on international and domestic market integration, using evidence from the long-standing softwood lumber trade dispute between Canada and the United States. -
Welfare Analysis of Equilibria With and Without Early Termination Fees in the US Wireless Industry
The elimination of long-term contracts and early termination fees (ETFs) in the US wireless industry at the end of 2015 increased monthly service fees by 2 to 5 percent. Nevertheless, consumers are clearly better off without ETFs. While firms’ revenues from ETFs vanish, their profits from monthly fees increase. As a result, the overall effect on producer profits is less clear. -
Identifying Consumer-Welfare Changes when Online Search Platforms Change Their List of Search Results
Online shopping is often guided by search platforms. Consumers type keywords into query boxes, and search platforms deliver a list of products. Consumers' attention is limited, and exhaustive searches are often impractical. -
A Spatial Model of Bank Branches in Canada
Using data on bank branch locations across Canada from 2008 to 2018, we explore an interesting aspect of bank branch competition—geographic concentration. We find that bank branch density does not correlate with geographic and market concentration; however, we do find strong correlation with postal-code demographics.