Governments have a substantial influence on the allocation of resources in setting the rules of the game of financial markets. However, up to now, institutional economics and the theory of financial markets are totally separated research areas. To close this analytical gap, our paper connects...

This is the first of the Financial Markets Department's descriptions of Canadian financial industrial organization. The document discusses the organization of the repurchase-agreement (repo) market in Canada. We define the repo contract, the market infrastructures that support repo trading and...

One of the main outcomes of the global financial crisis has been a series of new regulations imposed on the financial system and specifically on banks. As a result of the changing regulations, bank dealers introduced various "credit" and "liquidity" charges for uncollateralized over-the-counter...

This literature overview conducts a systematic study of how the climate related risks from global warming may affect financial markets. The climate related risk is divided into three subcategories, the environmental uncertainty, the economic climate risk and the climate policy risk, which all of...

This paper introduces a new methodology to date systemic financial stress events in a transparent, objective and reproducible way. The financial cycle is captured by a monthly country-specific financial stress index. Based on a Markov-switching model, high financial stress regimes are...

This paper proposes a practical approach to address the procyclicality of initial margin at central counterparties (CCPs) that can work even in periods of extreme stress. The approach allows CCPs to limit the speed of margin increases resulting from spikes in market volatility. To maintain the...

In 2011, Italy introduced gender quotas for boards of directors of companies listed on its stock market. Comparing before and after the reform within firms, we find that quotas are associated with a higher share of female board directors, higher levels of education of board members, and a lower...

The article presents a historical review of the literature related to the empirical problem of excessive risk premium. The risk premium (the difference between the return on equities and risk-free rate) observed in financial markets cannot be reconciled with theoretical models of financial...

The term 'financialization' describes the phenomenon that commodity contracts are traded for purely financial reasons and not for motives rooted in the real economy. Recently, financialization has been made responsible for causing adverse welfare effects especially for low-income and low-wealth...