18 January 2021

As we emerge from a year of unparalleled disruption, we look ahead to a 2021 that will continue to be shaped by the global pandemic, pressing human health issues, and the ensuing economic fallout. Many points of connection and comparison have been drawn between the pandemic and another external risk of global proportions – climate change. From big picture global forces right down to expected milestones in the Canadian financial sector, here are the trends that will shape the sustainable finance and climate risk agenda in 2021.

14 January 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique setting in which to evaluate the importance of a country’s fiscal capacity in explaining the relation between economic growth shocks and sovereign default risk. For a sample of 30 developed countries, we find a positive and significant sensitivity of sovereign default risk to the intensity of the virus’ spread for fiscally constrained governments. Supporting the fiscal channel, we confirm the results for Eurozone countries and U.S. states, for which monetary policy can be held constant. Our analysis suggests that financial markets penalize sovereigns with low fiscal space, thereby impairing their resilience to external shocks.

16 December 2020

This commentary offers some initial thoughts on the election returns and their consequences for political uncertainty. It then reflects on the specific implications of the “Biden Minus Blue Wave” scenario for Canadian financial institutions, as manifest in American domestic policy, U.S.-Canada relations, U.S.-China relations, and the larger U.S. global role.

9 December 2020

This report that presents results of a global institutional investor survey focused on understanding the methods to assess physical climate risk, the extent of formal training on physical climate risk received by the Boards of Directors, C-Suite officers and portfolio managers, and the utility of Climate Risk Matrices to aid portfolio managers in investment decisions.