How can policy-makers avoid large policy errors when they are uncertain about the true model of the economy? The author discusses some recent approaches that can be used for that purpose under two alternative scenarios: (i) the policy-maker has one reference model for choosing policy but cannot...

Traders using the electronic limit order book in the foreign exchange market can watch the posted price and depth of the best quotes change over the day. The authors use a structural errorcorrection model to examine the dynamics of the relationship between the best bid price, the best ask price,...

Policy-makers in the United States over the past 15 to 20 years seem to have been cautious in setting policy: empirical estimates of monetary policy rules such as Taylor's (1993) rule are much less aggressive than those derived from optimizing models. The author analyzes the effect of an...

This paper studies the use of information for incentives and risk sharing in agency problems. When the principal is risk neutral or the outcome is contractible, risk sharing is unnecessary or completely taken care of by a contract on the outcome. In this case, information systems are ranked...

The purpose of this paper is to make a quantitative contribution to the inflation versus price level targeting debate. It considers a policy-maker that can set policy either through an inflation targeting rule or a price level targeting rule to minimize a quadratic loss function using the actual...

The authors empirically analyze the price-setting behaviour of the major Canadian banks in the residential mortgage market over the period 19912007. They use weekly posted prices of the major mortgage providers to study the degree of competition in mortgage price setting. Their results suggest...

A default in the Automated Clearing Settlement System (ACSS) occurs when a Direct Clearer is unable to settle its final obligation. In August 2012, the Canadian Payments Association amended the ACSS by-law and rules to repeal the unwinding provisions from the ACSS default framework. Without...

The authors use simulations within the BoC-GEM-FIN, the Bank of Canada’s version of the Global Economy Model with financial frictions in both the demand and supply sides of the credit market, to investigate the macroeconomic implications of changing bank regulations on the Canadian economy....

This paper examines the impact of bank consolidation on mortgage rates in order to evaluate the extent to which mortgage markets are competitive. Mortgage markets are decentralized and so rates are determined through a search and negotiation process. The primary effect of a merger therefore is...