E4 - Money and Interest Rates

• Optimal Monetary Policy during Endogenous Housing-Market Boom-Bust Cycles

  Staff Working Paper 2009-32 Hajime Tomura

  This paper uses a small-open economy model for the Canadian economy to examine the optimal Taylor-type monetary policy rule that stabilizes output and inflation in an environment where endogenous boom-bust cycles in house prices can occur.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Financial stability, Inflation targets JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, E5, E52

• Bond Liquidity Premia

  Staff Working Paper 2009-28 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, René Garcia

  Recent asset pricing models of limits to arbitrage emphasize the role of funding conditions faced by financial intermediaries. In the US, the repo market is the key funding market. Then, the premium of on-the-run U.S. Treasury bonds should share a common component with risk premia in other markets.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial stability JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, H, H1, H12

• Consumption, Housing Collateral, and the Canadian Business Cycle

  Staff Working Paper 2009-26 Ian Christensen, Paul Corrigan, Caterina Mendicino, Shin-Ichi Nishiyama

  Using Bayesian methods, we estimate a small open economy model in which consumers face limits to credit determined by the value of their housing stock. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the role of collateralized household debt in the Canadian business cycle.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credit and credit aggregates, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E3, E32, E4, E44, E5, E52, R, R2, R21

• Credit Constraints and Consumer Spending

  Staff Working Paper 2009-25 Kimberly Beaton

  This paper examines the relationship between aggregate consumer spending and credit availability in the United States. The author finds that consumer spending falls (rises) in response to a reduction (increase) in credit availability.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Domestic demand and components, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E27, E4, E44, E5, E51, E58

• A Financial Conditions Index for the United States

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-11 Kimberly Beaton, René Lalonde, Corinne Luu

  The financial crisis of 2007–09 has highlighted the importance of developments in financial conditions for real economic activity. The authors estimate the effect of current and past shocks to financial variables on U.S. GDP growth by constructing two growthbased financial conditions indexes (FCIs) that measure the contribution to quarterly (annualized) GDP growth from financial conditions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary and financial indicators, Monetary conditions index, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E44, E47, E5, E51

• The Role of Convenience and Risk in Consumers' Means of Payment

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-8 Carlos Arango, Varya Taylor

  Using data from a 2004 survey of the Canadian public, the authors study the role of convenience and risk in consumers' use of cash relative to debit and credit cards. The authors find that consumers who perceive debit cards and credit cards to be more convenient and less risky than cash use them more frequently.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Bank notes JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, L, L2

• Real Effects of Price Stability with Endogenous Nominal Indexation

  Staff Working Paper 2009-16 Césaire Meh, Vincenzo Quadrini, Yaz Terajima

  We study a model with repeated moral hazard where financial contracts are not fully indexed to inflation because nominal prices are observed with delay as in Jovanovic & Ueda (1997).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Financial markets, Monetary policy framework, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E3, E31, E4, E44, E5, E52

• Heterogeneous Beliefs and Housing-Market Boom-Bust Cycles in a Small Open Economy

  Staff Working Paper 2009-15 Hajime Tomura

  This paper introduces heterogeneous beliefs among households in a small open economy model for the Canadian economy. The model suggests that simultaneous boom-bust cycles in house prices, output, investment, consumption and hours worked emerge when credit-constrained mortgage borrowers expect that future house prices will rise and this expectation is neither shared by savers nor realized ex-post.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Financial stability, Inflation targets JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, E5, E52