Business fluctuations and cycles

• March 9, 2010

  An Uncertain Past: Data Revisions and Monetary Policy in Canada

  Bank of Canada Review - Spring 2010 Greg Tkacz

  Many important economic variables are subject to revision. This article explains how, when, and why such revisions occur; how revisions to Canadian gross domestic product (GDP) compare with GDP revisions in some other countries; which GDP components are subject to the largest revisions; and how data revisions can affect policy decisions. The author finds that revisions to Canadian GDP tend to be smaller, on average, than those of some other countries, and that among the GDP components, exports and imports are most heavily revised.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary policy and uncertainty

• Introducing the Bank of Canada's Projection Model for the Global Economy

  Technical Report No. 99 Jeannine Bailliu, Patrick Blagrave, James Rossiter

  To complement its existing set of tools to analyze and forecast developments in the global economy, the Bank of Canada recently developed a version of the Global Projection Model (GPM) jointly with staff at the International Monetary Fund.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C6, C68, E, E2, E27, E3, E37, F, F0, F01

• Time Variation in Okun's Law: A Canada and U.S. Comparison

  Staff Working Paper 2010-7 Kimberly Beaton

  This article investigates the stability of Okun's law for Canada and the United States using a time varying parameter approach. Time variation is modeled as driftless random walks and is estimated using the median unbiased estimator approach developed by Stock and Watson (1998).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, J, J0, J00

• The Power of Many: Assessing the Economic Impact of the Global Fiscal Stimulus

  Staff Discussion Paper 2010-1 Carlos De Resende, René Lalonde, Stephen Snudden

  The Bank of Canada Global Economy Model (BoC-GEM) is used to examine the effect of various types of discretionary fiscal policies on different regions of the globe. The BoC-GEM is a microfounded dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium global model with six regions, multiple sectors, and international linkages.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Fiscal policy, International topics, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, E58, E6, E61, E63, F, F4, F42