The authors empirically analyze the price-setting behaviour of the major Canadian banks in the residential mortgage market over the period 1991–2007. They use weekly posted prices of the major mortgage providers to study the degree of competition in mortgage price setting. Their results...

The aims of this study are to examine how liquidity in the Government of Canada securities market has evolved over the 1990s and to determine what factors influence the level of liquidity in this market, with some comparisons to the U.S. Treasury securities market. We find empirical support for...

We analyze the relationship between the intensity of banks’ use of soft-information and household bankruptcy patterns. Using a unique data set on the universe of Canadian household bankruptcies, we document that bankruptcy rates are higher in markets where the collection of soft, or...

Using BoC-GEM-Fin, a large-scale DSGE model with real, nominal and financial frictions featuring a banking sector, we explore the macroeconomic implications of various types of countercyclical bank capital regulations. Results suggest that countercyclical capital requirements have a significant...

Consumers often purchase more than one differentiated product, assembling a portfolio, which might potentially affect substitution patterns of demand and, as a consequence, oligopolistic firms’ pricing strategies. This paper studies such consumers’ portfolio considerations by developing a...

Most financial markets allow investors to submit both limit and market orders, but it is not always clear what affects the choice of order type. The authors empirically investigate how the time between order submissions, changes in the state of the order book, and price uncertainty influence the...

This paper studies the role that market structure plays in affecting the diffusion of electronic banking. Electronic banking (and electronic commerce more generally) reduces the cost of performing many types of transactions for firms. The full benefits for firms from adoption, however, only...

The difference between actual borrowings and borrowing limits alone generates information asymmetry in the credit card market. This information asymmetry can make the market incomplete and create ex post misallocations. Households that are denied credit could well turn out to be ex post less...

This paper measures market power in a decentralized market where contracts are determined through a search and negotiation process. The mortgage industry has many institutional features which suggest competitiveness: homogeneous contracts, negotiable rates, and, for a given consumer, common...

This paper studies discounting in mortgage markets. Using transaction-level data on Canadian mortgages, we document that over time there’s been an increase in the average discount, along with substantial dispersion. The standard explanation for dispersion in credit markets is that lenders...