December 25, 2004
Credit and credit aggregates, Lender of last resort, Monetary and financial indicators, Financial institutions, Financial markets, International financial markets, Monetary policy implementation, Financial system regulation and policies, Financial services, Financial stability, Market structure and pricing, Payment clearing and settlement systems
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December 24, 2004
Government of Canada Yield-Curve Dynamics, 1986-2003
A database of historical Government of Canada zero-coupon yield curves developed at the Bank of Canada is introduced in this article, which also includes an initial statistical analysis of the behaviour and evolution of the zero-coupon interest (spot) rates over the full period and two distinct subperiods. Specific areas of interest include the evolution of the levels of key interest rates and yield-curve measures over the sample as well as daily changes in the key interest rates and the yield-curve measures; the identification of a relatively small number of factors that drove the evolution of the yield curve; and the total returns that would have been realized by holding bonds of different maturities for a given holding period. -
December 23, 2004
Bank of Canada Lender-of-Last-Resort Policies
The Bank of Canada has distinct roles as a lender of last resort. This article outlines how and under what circumstances the Bank can routinely provide liquidity to facilitate payment settlement, as well as the various ways it can respond in more exceptional situations.
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Trade Credit and Credit Rationing in Canadian Firms
Burkart and Ellingsen's (2004) model of trade credit and bank credit rationing predicts that trade credit will be used by medium-wealth and low-wealth firms to help ease bank credit rationing. -
An Empirical Analysis of the Canadian Term Structure of Zero-Coupon Interest Rates
Zero-coupon interest rates are the fundamental building block of fixed-income mathematics, and as such have an extensive number of applications in both finance and economics. -
The Monetary Origins of Asymmetric Information in International Equity Markets
Existing studies using low-frequency data show that macroeconomic shocks contribute little to international stock market covariation. -
Modelling the Evolution of Credit Spreads in the United States
The authors use Jarrow and Turnbull's (1995) reduced-form methodology to model the evolution of the term structure of interest rates in the United States for different credit classes and different industries. -
November 24, 2004
Asset Prices and Monetary Policy: A Canadian Perspective on the Issues
The issue addressed in this article is the extent to which monetary policy in Canada should respond to asset-price bubbles. The article concludes that maintaining low and stable consumer price inflation is the best contribution that monetary policy can make to promoting economic and financial stability, even when the economy experiences asset-price bubbles. In extreme circumstances—when an asset-price bubble is well identified and likely to have significant costs to the economy when it bursts—monetary policy might better maintain low and stable consumer price inflation by leaning against a particular bubble even though it may mean that inflation deviates temporarily from its target. Such a strategy might reduce the risk that a crash in asset prices could lead to a recession and to inflation markedly below target in the longer run. The circumstances where this strategy is possible will be rare because economists are far from being able to determine consistently and reliably when leaning against a particular bubble is likely to do more harm than good. Housing-price bubbles should be a greater concern for Canadian monetary policy than equity-price bubbles, since rising housing prices are more likely to reflect excessively easy domestic credit conditions than are equity prices, which are largely determined in global markets. -
November 23, 2004
Real Return Bonds: Monetary Policy Credibility and Short-Term Inflation Forecasting
The break-even inflation rate (BEIR) is calculated by comparing the yields on conventional and Real Return Bonds. Defined as the average rate of inflation that equates the expected returns on these two bonds, the BEIR has the potential to contain useful information about long-run inflation expectations. Yet the BEIR has been higher, on average, and more variable than survey measures of inflation expectations, which may be explained by the effects of premiums and distortions embedded in the BEIR. Because of the difficulty in accounting for these distortions, the BEIR should not be given a large weight as a measure of long-run inflation expectations at this time. However, as the Real Return Bond market continues to develop, the BEIR should become a more useful indicator of inflation expectations. At present, it demonstrates no clear advantage over survey measures and even past inflation rates in forecasting near-term inflation. -
November 22, 2004
The Evolving Financial System and Public Policy: Conference Highlights and Lessons
At the 12th annual Bank of Canada economic conference, held in Ottawa on 4 and 5 December 2003, representatives from various public and private organizations and Bank of Canada staff discussed papers presented on three key issues affecting the financial system: financial contagion, the implications of bank diversification, and financial sector regulation. Papers on financial contagion studied the effect of globalization on Canadian foreign-asset exposures, developed a general-equilibrium model of a competitive interfirm lending market in which firms can borrow or lend, and used market-based indicators to determine the probability that contagion can be generated by interbank exposures. The papers on bank diversification focused on the links between the changing behaviour of financial institutions and risk-return trade-offs. Issues of financial sector regulation included the relationship between governance and financial sector soundness, the theoretical basis of bank regulations for capital requirements, and the implications of bank capital requirements for the transmission of monetary policy. A panel discussion provided extended discussion of the conference papers.