Bank of Canada Review Article

• August 23, 2004

  The Evolution of Liquidity in the Market for Government of Canada Bonds

  Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2004 Stacey Anderson, Stéphane Lavoie

  Using turnover ratios, Anderson and Lavoie describe the recent evolution of liquidity in various secondary government bond markets, focusing specifically on the market for Government of Canada securities. They attribute much of the recent variation in liquidity to such cyclical factors as changes in the interest rate environment and investors' appetite for risk, as well as developments in equity markets in the late 1990s. They also examine longer-term structural and policy-related trends, including the rate of adoption of financial and technological innovations and the level of government borrowing and debt-management initiatives.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Debt management, Financial markets, Recent economic and financial developments
• August 22, 2004

  Canada's Capital Markets: How Do They Measure Up?

  Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2004 Sheryl Kennedy

  In a recent speech, Deputy Governor Sheryl Kennedy discusses how the efficiency of Canada's capital markets compares in a global context. Taking into account the three inter-related aspects of an efficient market (allocational, operational, and informational efficiency), Kennedy reviews the recent performance of Canadian capital markets under such headings as size, completeness, and access to capital and the instruments needed to hedge, or distribute, risk (allocational efficiency). To assess operational efficiency, she considers Canadian markets' liquidity and whether their transactional costs are competitive. Finally, she reviews transparency and market integrity (and how integrity is maintained) to determine markets' informational efficiency. She also offers several suggestions as to how Canadian markets can continue to be improve and maintain their competitiveness.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles
• August 21, 2004

  The Canadian Experience with Counterfeiting

  Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2004 John Chant

  Counterfeiting poses a significant public policy issue because of the important role that paper money plays in Canada's payments system. Yet the threat of counterfeiting in all economies has increased markedly in the past decade as a result of technological advances to photocopiers and computer printers. An appropriate public policy response is thus necessary to maintain the public's continued confidence in the national currency. To assess the threat from counterfeiting, including possible loss of confidence in the currency, estimating the stock of counterfeits circulating is necessary. In this article, Chant proposes a composite method of detecting counterfeits as an effective alternative to existing methods and offers estimates of the extent of counterfeiting Canadian currency for 2001. An Addendum to the article summarizes Chant's methods and updates the calculations to 2003.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Bank notes
• May 23, 2004

  The Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey

  Bank of Canada Review - Spring 2004 Monica Martin

  Since the autumn of 1997, the regional offices of the Bank of Canada have conducted quarterly consultations with businesses across Canada. Timed to feed into the process that precedes the Bank's fixed dates for announcing monetary policy decisions, the consultations (now referred to as the Business Outlook Survey) are structured around a questionnaire which is sent to 100 firms that reflect the Canadian economy in terms of region, type of business activity, and firm size. Martin describes both the consultation process and the questionnaire and makes an initial assessment of the data gathered during the business interviews. The article includes charts and correlation tables that illustrate the responses to the key questions included in the survey.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Regional economic developments
• May 22, 2004

  Exchange Rate Pass-Through in Industrialized Countries

  Bank of Canada Review - Spring 2004 Jeannine Bailliu, Hafedh Bouakez

  Economists' long-standing interest in the degree to which exchange rate movements are reflected in prices was rekindled in the 1970s by a combination of rising inflation and the adoption of more flexible exchange rate regimes in many industrialized countries. Specifically, there were concerns that a large currency depreciation could degenerate into an inflationary spiral. Such fears were curtailed in the 1980s and early 1990s as industrialized countries began to reduce and stabilize their inflation rates. The low-inflation period most industrialized countries entered approximately a decade ago coincided with significant exchange rate depreciations that had much smaller effects on consumer prices than expected. This led to a belief that the extent to which exchange rate movements are passed through to consumer prices has declined. In this article, the authors examine why pass-through could be incomplete and review empirical estimates to determine whether pass-through has indeed declined, suggesting possible reasons for this decline and discussing the implications for monetary policy.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Exchange rates, Inflation and prices, Monetary policy framework
• May 21, 2004

  Are Wealth Effects Important for Canada?

  Bank of Canada Review - Spring 2004 Lise Pichette

  Some analysts believe that a sharp rise in equity values was an important factor in the strong consumer spending between 1995 and 2000. Empirical evidence suggests, however, that consumer spending responds more to changes in housing wealth than it does to equity wealth.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Domestic demand and components