Staff research

• November 30, 2013

  Research Update - November 2013

  This monthly newsletter features the latest research publications by Bank of Canada economists including external publications and working papers published on the Bank of Canada’s website.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Research newsletters

• Expectations and Monetary Policy: Experimental Evidence

  Staff Working Paper 2013-44 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Luba Petersen

  The effectiveness of monetary policy depends, to a large extent, on market expectations of its future actions. In a standard New Keynesian business-cycle model with rational expectations, systematic monetary policy reduces the variance of inflation and the output gap by at least two-thirds.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary policy implementation, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): C, C9, D, D8, D84, E, E3, E5, E52

• Perceived Inflation Persistence

  Staff Working Paper 2013-43 Monica Jain

  The Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) has had vast influence on research related to better understanding expectation formation and the behaviour of macroeconomic agents. Inflation expectations, in particular, have received a great deal of attention, since they play a crucial role in determining real interest rates, the expectations-augmented Phillips curve and monetary policy.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E37

• High-Frequency Real Economic Activity Indicator for Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2013-42 Gitanjali Kumar

  I construct a weekly measure of real economic activity in Canada. Based on the work of Aruoba et al. (2009), the indicator is extracted as an unobserved component underlying the co-movement of four monthly observed real macroeconomic variables - employment, manufacturing sales, retail sales and GDP.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C3, C38, E, E3, E32

• Sovereign Default and State-Contingent Debt

  Staff Discussion Paper 2013-3 Martin Brooke, Rhys R. Mendes, Alex Pienkowski, Eric Santor

  The Latin American debt crises in the 1980s and the Asian crisis in the late 1990s both provided impetus for reforming the framework for restructuring sovereign debt. In the late 1980s, the Brady plan established the importance of substantive debt relief in addressing some crises.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): International financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F3, F34

• Central Bank Communications Before, During and After the Crisis: From Open-Market Operations to Open-Mouth Policy

  Staff Working Paper 2013-41 Ianthi Vayid

  The days when secrecy and opacity were the bywords of central banking are gone. The advent of inflation targeting in the early 1990s acted as the catalyst for enhanced transparency and communications in the conduct of monetary policy.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Central bank research, Credibility, Financial stability, Inflation targets, Monetary policy framework, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, E58

• Unemployment Fluctuations in a Small Open-Economy Model with Segmented Labour Markets: The Case of Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2013-40 Yahong Zhang

  The recent financial crisis and subsequent recession have spurred great interest in the sources of unemployment fluctuations. Previous studies predominantly assume a single economy-wide labour market, and therefore abstract from differences across sectorspecific labour markets in the economy.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E44, J, J6

• The Financialization of Food?

  Staff Working Paper 2013-39 Valentina G. Bruno, Bahattin Buyuksahin, Michel A. Robe

  Commodity-equity and cross-commodity return co-movements rose dramatically after the 2008 financial crisis. This development took place following what has been dubbed the “financialization” of commodity markets.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): International topics, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G13, Q, Q1, Q11, Q13

• Some Economics of Private Digital Currency

  Staff Working Paper 2013-38 Joshua S. Gans, Hanna Halaburda

  This paper reviews some recent developments in digital currency, focusing on platform-sponsored currencies such as Facebook Credits.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Economic models, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): D, D4, D42, E, E4, L, L5, L51