US Federal Reserve System Research Articles

Understanding the German criticism of Target

Abstract Does the accumulation of large Target imbalances threaten the viability of the monetary union? Several German and central European scholars have responded in the affirmative: in the case of a disorderly break-up, debtor countries might have an incentive to default on their Target balances, and this would represent a real loss to Target creditors. Most academics have rejected this argument: in their view, a Target default would be only a paper loss to creditors. I propose a simple and unified framework to study the working of the Target system in response to different shocks. I then argue that the German criticism of the Target system is not so unfounded after all, and should be taken seriously. The underlying problem is the co-existence of separate central banks within the Eurozone; if one wants to preserve this feature, no alternative to the current Target system and its problems seems to be realistically available. In particular, comparisons with the Interdistrict Settlement Account of the US Federal Reserve system are misleading.

The impact of the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve System of the United States on world oil prices

The relevance of the presented scientific research lies in the search for new data on foreign economic factors that can change world oil prices. The purpose of the study is to predict the prices of Brent crude oil based on the impact of new external economic factors, because the influence of supply and demand in the energy market has significantly weakened. To achieve the purpose of the study, the following tasks were solved: the theoretical foundations of the oil market were considered; a methodological approach to forecasting world oil prices was selected; as a result, an equation of multiple linear regression with independent variables in the form of indicators of the monetary policy of the United States is constructed, which makes it possible to make a forecast of world oil prices. The research involves general and special scientific methods: analysis, synthesis, monographic, statistical (graphical, tabular, centered moving average method, correlation and regression analysis). The scientific novelty of the study is as follows: based on statistical data on Brent crude oil prices, the effective federal funds rate of the US Federal Reserve, the M2 monetary aggregate in the US, the US dollar index, the US core personal consumption expenditure price index, the unemployment rate in the US for the period January 2014 January 2023, the equation is constructed multiple linear regression with the function of forecasting Brent crude oil prices. The above equation of multiple linear regression reflects the noticeable influence of the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve System on world oil prices.

Theory and practice of overcoming an economic crisis (on the Nobel Prize in economics in 2022)

The article analyzes the Nobel Prize winners in economics of the 2022’s research results. The author explains the meaning of the terms which are necessary for the analysis: money multiplier, liquidity, mortgage, mortgage bonds. In addition, the psychological factor in the formation of critical situations in the banking sector is considered the way it was interpreted by the winners. The article analyzes the reasons which led to the lower position of the USSR’s and modern Russia’s money multiplier compared to the position of the multiplier of the countries with developed market economies including, first of all, the USA. The paper also discusses the role which the “real bills doctrine” played in the activity of the US Federal Reserve System and Ben Bernank personally. Ben Bernank’s cautious line of behavior during the overcoming the 2008 crisis is described. The model of liquidity dynamics which belongs to the laureates and that is vividly discussed in the scientific community is considered in detail.

ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ ДЕТЕРМІНАНТ ВПЛИВУ НА МЕХАНІЗМ ФУНКЦІОНУВАННЯ КРИПТОВАЛЮТ В УМОВАХ СВІТОВОЇ ЕКОНОМІЧНОЇ НЕВИЗНАЧЕНОСТІ

The article is devoted to a comprehensive study of the determinants affecting the mechanism of functioning of cryptocurrencies in the context of global economic uncertainty. The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the history, essence and mechanism of functioning of cryptoassets, and also examines the principle of Blockchain technology and the process of cryptocurrency mining. It is found that the profitability of mining is assessed taking into account such factors as electricity costs, hardware requirements and remuneration for mining, which provides valuable information about the economic feasibility of this activity. The authors analyze the main cryptocurrencies and their capitalization, and identify the main trends in the crypto markets. Based on the foundation of understanding the basic mechanics of cryptocurrencies, the study identifies and examines the key determinants that affect their functioning. Thus, internal and external factors of influence on cryptocurrencies were identified. The former include supply and demand, while the latter include economic, macrofinancial, political, technological, and social factors. The analysis of these factors revealed a complex network of influences that shape the cryptocurrency market, emphasizing the interaction between global economic uncertainty and the behavior of digital assets. It was found that while traditional assets can lose their stability in times of global instability, interest in the digital currencies under study is growing rapidly, and the introduction of new technologies allows to eliminate the existing weaknesses of cryptocurrencies. To ensure an exhaustive determination of the determinants of action, the chronology of events and news that affected the cryptocurrency market from 2018 to 2023 was studied. This visual representation made it possible to identify key changes in the development vector, including: the actions of the US Federal Reserve System, the war in Ukraine (which provoked a number of crises) and stricter regulation of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. Conclusions are drawn about the need to expand the analysis of the impact of the regulatory framework on the cryptocurrency market and to develop a comprehensive methodology for assessing the factors that affect cryptocurrencies. Keywords: cryptocurrencies, global economic uncertainty, determinants, factors, Bitcoin, Blockchain.

US investment giants Vanguard Group and BlackRock on the path to establishing a global oligopoly

Vanguard, Blackrock, and State Street, the largest US investment funds, form the Big Three, often referred to as the "Three that own the US". These three financial corporations are intertwined and hold strategically significant stakes in industrial, energy, transport, pharmaceutical, food, information and technology companies, the vast majority of which are multinational corporations themselves. Through dominance in the system of corporate elections, the Big Three, or rather its main protagonist Blackrock, gets the opportunity to "manage the management" of other companies and corporations, and thereby dominate the financial, technological and other global markets, suppress the activities of competitors, establish and spread their value system and influence the economy and politics of the United States itself through the closest interaction with the US Federal Reserve System.

The Wealth of Our Commonwealth: Money and Capital in the Productive Republic

There is a share of the investment capital available in any society that is generated by the public. In contemporary societies with well-developed payments systems and effective public governance, this share tends to grow large in comparison to that originated by non-public sources. For the latter is intermediated and thus must be pre-accumulated, while the former is generated and is the source of what is accumulated. In spite of these truths, the US outsources management of its public capital stock to private sector financial institutions. This is a practice which a host of under-appreciated collective action predicaments endemic to decentralized market exchange, most of them recursive and hence iteratively self-worsening without limit, ensures will result in misallocation and, therefore, poor modulation of credit aggregates as well. What is needed to draw public capital out of bubble-inflation and back into productive investment is to bring it back under public management, a project for which the present exposition provides a full architecture. This architecture is modeled as a stylized public balance sheet, taking the US Treasury and Federal Reserve System as consolidated case study. Public liabilities take the form of Democratic Digital Dollars issued through interest-bearing digital Business and Citizen Wallets. Public assets take the form of public credit extended by Treasury’s Federal Financing Bank (‘FFB’) and a newly ‘Spread Fed’ only for productive, not speculative, projects. A National Reconstruction & Development Council (‘NRDC’) and Price Stabilization Fund (‘The People’s Portfolio’) complete the picture, respectively affording democratic guidance as to what counts socially as ‘productive’ and collaring volatility among Systemically Important Prices and Indices (‘SIPIs’). Our public capital stock is a public resource in need of public management, which must be managed productively by and for the community.

The primary goal of monetary policy: reflections on the nature of the problem

Aim: In this article, the state of the discourse concerning the final goal of the modern central bank is presented, in particular the aim of price stability, understood as low and stable inflation.
 
 Design/Research methods: The article was prepared on the basis of scientific publications in the field of monetary policy as well as materials and documents from different central banks, including the US Federal Reserve System and the European Central Bank.
 
 Conclusions/findings: Low and stable inflation reduces uncertainty about future price developments. This facilitates decision-making for companies concerning production and investment, and for households concerning consumption and saving. From a macroeconomic point of view, price stability is a prerequisite for the efficient functioning of the economy and for achieving high growth rates. In practice, the need for a quantifiable definition has been disregarded, while only a descriptive and qualitative definition of price stability is insufficient for an effective monetary policy and the implementation of the anti-inflationary mission by the central bank.

Restoring the Promise of Federal Reserve Governance

The US Federal Reserve System (Fed) is famous for its organizational complexity. Overlooked in debates about the costs and benefits of this complexity for the Fed’s legitimacy, independence, and accountability is the congressional vision of what the Fed should be. The central bank is governed by a highly accountable seven-person Board of Governors to manage the rest of the system. Time and experience have eroded this authority as a matter of practice but not as a matter of law. The Fed governors are supposed to supervise the system, a legal aspiration that has increasingly been enervated by institutional drift. Using empirical and historical tools, this paper discusses the erosion of the Board of Governors over the Fed’s century-long history, including the substantial reduction in real compensation for the governors, their diminished participation in Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings, and the increased vacancies that recently have been driven by the political process. To address these problems, the paper suggests reforms across three divides: cultural, regulatory, and legislative. Remedies include changing norms of FOMC meeting participation to place nonvoting members of the FOMC as “observers”; clarifying the role of the Fed’s Board of Governors in supervising the Federal Reserve Banks, particularly with respect to the presidential search process; increasing attention to vacancies and promoting bipartisan interest in credible candidates; and increasing governor salaries to match those of their colleagues at the 12 Federal Reserve Banks, consistent with legislative intent from 1913.

The Essence of Optimism of The Economists and Investors with Regard to the Economy of Russia

The gross domestic product of Russia, expressed in US dollars, indicates problems in the Russian economy associated with the decline in oil prices on the world energy market and the consequences of the sanctions of the United States and the European Union against Russia. The crisis situation of the Russian economy has a negative impact on the income of the population of country, represented mainly by wages. However, an economist or investor may be optimistic about Russian economic development in the medium term. This optimism is related to the economic policy of the United States. The expansion of the United States economy within the global space, based on economic growth, requires maintaining inflation within the target level and weakening the US dollar. These tasks are solved with the help of soft monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve System. The reduction of interest rates by the US Federal Reserve System against the background of inflation of the target level and the devaluation of the US dollar will contribute to economic growth in the United States, because it will lead to the depreciation of public debt, lower consumption of imports, increase in exports and trade balance, growth of production, income, consumption. The economic policy of the United States, which contributes to the devaluation of the US dollar, will also reduce the US dollar against the ruble. The optimistic view of investors-economists on the Russian economy is due to a significant strengthening of the ruble against the US dollar. Consequently, in the medium term, the gross domestic product and wages of citizens of Russia, expressed in US dollars, will significantly increase, and the purchasing power of the national currency of the country will also increase. This growth may continue until the next election of a new President of the United States in november 2020. After the election of the new President of the United States, there is a high probability of sanctions against Russia and of decline in oil prices in the world energy market in accordance with the future economic policy of the United States – two main reasons for the sharp strengthening of the US dollar against the ruble, which will cause a deeper economic crisis in Russia in the medium and long term.

MODELING OF THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM USING THE CONCEPT OF VACUUM POLARIZATION

The possibility of using the theory of deterministic chaos is considered. Vacuum polarization is a fundamental type of physical processes. The average value of any physical quantity must remain zero. Taking this assumption as a fundamental law, we propose a model that describes the processes of variation (depreciation) of the value of money. At the same time, we consider the processes of variation of the initial amount of funds introduced into the economic system by an independent “generator” (for example, the US Federal Reserve System) in a situation when the amount of returned funds must exceed the amount of given credits. Since the amount of returned funds must exceed the amount borrowed by the value of the refinancing rate, either a constantly increasing debt is formed, or an increase in the money introduced to the economy. The relationship of the “depreciation” of money is also investigated in this model

Impact of the collapse of the Lehman Brothers bank and the 2008 financial crisis on global economic security

The study presents the analysis of the economic phenomena that occurred at the turn of 2007/2008. The financial meltdown and stagnation – a slowdown in the growth of world economies, which led to a chain of bankruptcies and debts, took place in those years. Due to the domino effect, the Lehman Brothers activity had an impact on the global economy. The bank declared bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, which caused panic on the US stock exchange and a greater conviction about the crisis of high-risk mortgage loans. The result was multifaceted activities implementing proper corporate governance and deliberalization of financial law in the United States. The collapse of the colossus achieving record profits was, therefore, a kind of breakthrough that triggered a financial crisis that spread throughout the world. The State Treasury and the US Federal Reserve System joined the rescue of the company; nevertheless, negotiations with potential investors ended in a fiasco.

Paul van Zeeland and the First Decade of the US Federal Reserve System: the Analysis from a European Central Banker who was a Student of Kemmerer

The establishment of a central bank occurred at very different moments in the process of economic integration in the United States and the European Union. In this paper, we go into the first years of the Federal Reserve System through the lens of Paul van Zeeland’s PhD dissertation. Paul van Zeeland (1893-1973) became the first Head of the Economics Service of the National Bank of Belgium in 1921, after his studies in Princeton with Edwin Walter Kemmerer. There are clear similarities in their analyses of the Federal Reserve System, for instance in their adherence to the gold standard and the real bills doctrine as well as in their emphasis on the elasticity of the money supply. Moreover, they shared a view - with hindsight a rather naive view - that with the Fed in place, financial crises would be a distant memory. However, there were also important differences. So, van Zeeland, like several other economists as Warburg, accorded greater significance to the discount market (a key factor for the international role of the dollar) and to a stronger centralization of the Fed (which would be taken up in the 1935 Banking Act). Moreover, very specific for van Zeeland is the importance given to the Fed’s independence from the State (an element related to van Zeeland’s continental European background and Belgium’s experience of monetary financing during the war).

Reconsidering Central Bank Lending of Last Resort

Central banks serve many key roles in financial markets and economies. One of their most important tasks consists of lending of last resort. When standard sources of funding dry up, banks and increasingly other financial institutions expect central banks to replace conventional lenders. Changed realities in financial markets, however, challenge central banks to reconsider the terms traditionally applied to their emergency lending facilities. The Bagehot dictum, providing the elementary criteria for last resort lending, must be reassessed in light of today’s large, interconnected financial markets in which banks pose enormous threats to financial stability and transposition of monetary policy has become more complicated for central banks. This article analyses these issues from the perspective of lending of last resort by the US Federal Reserve System (‘Fed’), the central banks of the Eurozone (‘Eurosystem’) and the Bank of England. It argues in favour of robust and reliable lending criteria and consequently the elimination of the principle of constructive ambiguity and a flexible application of all other traditional lending requirements. Central banks do not operate in a legal vacuum, but the legal provisions on which such lending relies have been given little attention. The article breaks with this tradition, focusing on the Eurosystem whose legal framework leaves important issues unaddressed. It calls for an explicit mandate of financial stability for the Eurosystem that prescribes the circumstances under which financial stability takes priority over the price stability objective.

, 2018. : (EDB Macroreview, February 2018. EDB Economies: Positive Trends in Mutual Trade)

Russian Abstract: Рост мировой экономики в 2017 г. поддерживался увеличением деловой активности как в развитых, так и в ключевых развивающихся экономиках. В условиях ослабления рисков дефляции, а также улучшения ситуации с важным макроэкономическим параметром – безработицей наметилась тенденция нормализации денежно-кредитной политики, проводимой Федеральной резервной системой (ФРС США). Европейский центральный банк также движется в направлении снижения объемов программы количественного смягчения. Таким образом, поддерживающий эффект монетарной политики постепенно исчерпывается, но в системе сохраняется довольно много фискальных стимулов, способствующих ускорению экономического роста. Подъем инвестиций и восстановление мировой торговли стран с развитой экономикой стали третьей составляющей, обеспечившей более высокий, чем ожидалось, рост в 2017 г. Позитивная динамика экономического роста в мире стала причиной восстановления благоприятной конъюнктуры на мировых товарно-сырьевых рынках. Так, рост средней цены на нефть марки Brent в 2017 г. по сравнению с 2016 г. составил 23,5%. Цены на драгоценные металлы выросли в среднем за год на 0,4%, на недрагоценные – в среднем на 24,4%. Монетарная политика в основных экономиках мира перестанет быть главным фактором поддержки роста, однако в России и иных странах ЕАБР в настоящих условиях имеется шанс простимулировать экономику за счет достижения беспрецедентно низкой инфляции и возможности дальнейшего снижения ключевой ставки. Смягчение денежно-кредитной политики в большинстве стран региона будет поддерживать инвестиционную активность. При сохранении благоприятного внешнего фона можно предположить развитие положительных тенденций, в том числе восстановление притока зарубежных инвестиций, рост взаимной торговли стран ЕАБР. Увеличение денежных переводов трудовых мигрантов простимулирует внутренний спрос в экономиках региона, платежный баланс которых во многом зависит от этих трансфертов. English Abstract: World economic growth in 2017 was driven by an increase in business activity in both developed and key developing economies. In the context of falling deflation risk, as well as an improvement in unemployment – an important macroeconomic parameter – there has been a trend towards normalization of the US Federal Reserve System's monetary policy. The European Central Bank is also moving in the direction of reducing its quantitative easing program. Thus, monetary policy's supporting effect is gradually ending, but the system retains a lot of fiscal incentives to help accelerate economic growth. The rise in investment and the recovery of world trade in developed economies was the third component driving higher than expected growth in 2017. The world's positive economic growth trend drove a return to favorable conditions on world commodity markets. The average price for Brent crude in 2017 grew by 23.5% YoY. Prices for precious metals rose by 0.4% on average for the year, and non-precious metals grew by an average of 24.4%. Monetary policy in the main global economies will cease to be the main factor in supporting growth, but in Russia and other EDB countries, given current conditions, there is a chance to stimulate economic growth due to unprecedented low inflation and the possibility of a further lowering of the key rate. A softening of monetary policy in most of the region's countries will support investment activity. If a favorable external environment is maintained, positive trends can be expected to develop, including the restoration of foreign investment and growth of mutual trade between EDB countries. The increase in labor migrants' remittances will stimulate domestic demand in the region's economies, whose balance of payments largely depends on these transfers.

EDB Macroreview, February 2018. EDB Economies: Positive Trends in Mutual Trade

World economic growth in 2017 was driven by an increase in business activity in both developed and key developing economies. In the context of falling deflation risk, as well as an improvement in unemployment – an important macroeconomic parameter – there has been a trend towards normalization of the US Federal Reserve System's monetary policy. The European Central Bank is also moving in the direction of reducing its quantitative easing program. Thus, monetary policy's supporting effect is gradually ending, but the system retains a lot of fiscal incentives to help accelerate economic growth. The rise in investment and the recovery of world trade in developed economies was the third component driving higher than expected growth in 2017. The world's positive economic growth trend drove a return to favorable conditions on world commodity markets. The average price for Brent crude in 2017 grew by 23.5% YoY. Prices for precious metals rose by 0.4% on average for the year, and non-precious metals grew by an average of 24.4%. Monetary policy in the main global economies will cease to be the main factor in supporting growth, but in Russia and other EDB countries, given current conditions, there is a chance to stimulate economic growth due to unprecedented low inflation and the possibility of a further lowering of the key rate. A softening of monetary policy in most of the region's countries will support investment activity. If a favorable external environment is maintained, positive trends can be expected to develop, including the restoration of foreign investment and growth of mutual trade between EDB countries. The increase in labor migrants' remittances will stimulate domestic demand in the region's economies, whose balance of payments largely depends on these transfers.

Corporate governance and default risk in financial firms over the post-financial crisis period: International evidence

This paper investigates the relationship between default risk and corporate governance for financial firms in 28 countries outside of North America in the post-financial crisis period, where default risk is measured by both credit default swap (CDS) spreads and estimated by a Merton-type model. Reduced default risk helps the stock market rebound during the post-crisis period. Both internal governance variables, including institutional and insider ownership, board composition and CEO power, and external regulatory factors, are examined and they show significant effect on default risk. In addition, the impacts of various governance variables are continent-specific: they have a higher impact on default risk for Asian firms than for European firms. Regulatory factors are important moderators of the governance mechanisms for banks: higher Tier 1 capital ratios reduce both CDS and fundamental default risk; recipients of secret emergency loans from the US Federal Reserve System (the Fed) exhibit lower CDS spreads post-crisis but higher fundamental default probabilities.

((((((, , ) (Forecasting of Global Prices in Financial Markets (Commodities, Share Prices, Exchange Rates))

Russian Abstract: В работе дан теоретический и практический очерк изменений в причинно-следственных механизмах формирования цен на сырье, акции, курсы валют в 1970 – 2010-х гг. Раскрыт ключевой механизм зависимости циклов курса доллара США (в его основной паре доллар – евро или к корзине мировых валют) от бизнес-циклов, денежной политики Федеральной резервной системы США, дифференциала долгосрочных процентных ставок. Определен (качественно и количественно), разобран в деталях процесс формирования мировых цен на сырье (нефть, газ, металлы, продовольствие) под воздействием инфляции и курса доллара на финансовых рынках (с учетом того, что обычные фундаментальные факторы спроса, предложения, технологий, запасов сырья с начала 2000-х гг. отошли на второй план). Показана функциональная зависимость циклической динамики курсов акций от бизнес-циклов. Дан обширный обзор международных исследований в области долгосрочной динамики курсов валюты, цен на сырье, акции, их циклов, формирующих их факторов и причинно-следственных связей. Полученные в них результаты полностью «подключены» к собственным исследованиям.На этой основе сделан долгосрочный прогноз циклической динамики курса доллара США, цен на сырье (нефть, газ, металлы, продовольствие), курсов акций.English Abstract: The paper provides a theoretical and practical account of evolution in cause and effect mechanisms driving pricing of commodities, shares and exchange rates between 1970 and 2010s. A key dependency structure between US dollar rate cycles (in relation to the main USD-EUR currency pair and to a basket of world currencies) and business cycles, monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve system and long term interest rate differentials is explored. The influence of inflation rate and dollar exchange rate on global pricing of commodities (oil, gas, metals and agricultural products) is identified (qualitatively and qualitatively) and reviewed in detail. The analysis reflects decreased significance of the usual fundamental factors of demand, supply, technology, known reserves from early 2000s. A functional relationship between cyclical dynamics of share prices and business cycles is shown.An extensive review of international research exploring long term exchange rate dynamics, commodity prices, share prices, their cycles, drivers and causal links is provided. The findings are incorporated into the analysis.On this basis a long term forecast of the cyclical dynamics of US dollar exchange rate, commodity prices (oils, gas, metals, agricultural products) and share prices is formulated.

The interrelation of stock markets in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong and their constructional portfolio’s value-at-risk estimate

This study employs a bivariate asymmetric generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model to estimate the return, variance and covariance for three stock-based portfolios composed of two alternative indexes of the stock markets in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, explores the return and volatility spillover effects between two indexes of the portfolio constructed and estimates the out-of-sample value-at-risk (VaR). Using the effective validation framework proposed by the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System, this study finds that, as shown in the price levels and spillover effects on return and volatility, the stock markets in these three regions are closely related and are significantly positively correlated. Moreover, there is a volatility feedback effect in China's stock market and a significant leverage effect in the Hong Kong and Taiwan stock markets. Furthermore, via the construction of portfolios, market risk can be reduced and the stock-based portfolio, which is composed of stock indexes in China and Taiwan, has the optimal risk dispersion. Finally, from the performance competition of alternative VaR models, two semiparametric approaches, weighted historical simulation (WHS) and, in particular, filtered historical simulation (FHS), can reduce the underestimation of the true risk caused by an inappropriate return distribution setting of the parametric approach. Moreover, the effects of this approach are more influential than the leverage effect on the VaR estimates. Hence, the FHS approach with the asymmetric volatility specification model, FHS-B-JR, is optimal, enabling precise forecasting of theVaR. In addition, regarding the backtesting, the loss functions are more sensitive than the accuracy measure tests.

The European central bank and the us federal reserve as lender of last resort

Without a lender of last resort financial stability is not possible and systemic financial crises get out of control. During and after the Great Recession the US Federal Reserve System (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) took on the role of lender of last resort in a comprehensive way. The Fed stabilised the financial system, including the shadow banking system. However, the chance to fundamentally restructure the financial system was not used. The ECB was confronted with sovereign debt crises and an incomplete integration of the European Monetary Union (EMU). It followed a kind of ?muddling through? to keep the Euro area together. In the EMU not only a fundamental restructuring of the financial system is needed but also a deeper economic and political integration. The Fed and the ECB both were the most important institutions to avoid repetition of the 1930s.

Mining Legal and Business Resources on Canadian Banking

Given the distinct nature of the Canadian banking system, it is important for novice researchers to know which business and legal resources to consult in order to quickly find information that is particular to Canadian banking. However, there are very few articles or monographs in the library literature that describe how to find information sources exclusively on this subject from a Canadian perspective. Most available publications tend to specialize in sources for the US banking and Federal Reserve System with little attention to Canada. The paper begins with a brief introduction to Canadian banking. From there, the authors demonstrate where researchers can find primary sources such as legislation, regulations and case law. In addition, this article identifies and discusses the different types of information found on the websites of associations and government agencies such as the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, which supervises and regulates various areas of Canada’s financial system. Also discussed are secondary sources such as industry research and reports that are available from reliable websites and subscription-based resources. This paper also explores the best business and legal databases for researchers. Based on results from searching in periodical directories and indexes, the paper additionally provides a description of the most pertinent academic, trade and general publications relevant to the Canadian banking system and where their contents are indexed.