Recent economic and financial developments

• November 28, 2017

  Analysis of Household Vulnerabilities Using Loan-Level Mortgage Data

  Financial System Review - November 2017 Olga Bilyk, Alexander Ueberfeldt, Yang Xu

  This report examines detailed data on home mortgages to provide a better understanding of the vulnerabilities associated with the mortgage market. The proportion of low-ratio mortgages is growing, particularly in regions with strong house price growth. Moreover, these borrowers exhibit less flexibility to adverse shocks, since they have high debt levels relative to income and have taken mortgages with long amortization periods.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Financial System Review articles Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Recent economic and financial developments, Sectoral balance sheet JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, D14, G, G2, G21, G28
• November 16, 2017

  Factors Behind the 2014 Oil Price Decline

  Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2017 Reinhard Ellwanger, Benjamin Sawatzky, Konrad Zmitrowicz

  Oil prices have declined sharply over the past three years. While both supply and demand factors played a role in the large oil price decline of 2014, global supply growth seems to have been the predominant force. The most important drivers were likely the surprising growth of US shale oil production, the output decisions of the Organization of the Petro-leum Exporting Countries and the weaker-than-expected global growth that followed the 2009 global financial crisis.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, International topics, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): Q, Q4, Q41, Q43
• November 16, 2017

  An Update on the Neutral Rate of Interest

  Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2017 José Dorich, Abeer Reza, Subrata Sarker

  The neutral rate serves as a benchmark for measuring monetary stimulus and provides a medium- to long-run anchor for the real policy rate. Global neutral rate estimates have been falling over the past few decades. Factors such as population aging, high corporate savings, and low trend productivity growth are likely to continue supporting a low global neutral rate. These global factors as well as domestic factors are exerting downward pres-sure on the Canadian real neutral rate, which is estimated to be between 0.5 to 1.5 per cent. This low neutral rate has important implications for monetary policy and financial stability.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Interest rates, International topics, Potential output, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E5, E52, E58, F, F0, F01, F4, F43, O, O4
• November 1, 2017

  Opening Statement before the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce

  Opening statement Stephen S. Poloz Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce Ottawa, Ontario

  Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and committee members. Senior Deputy Governor Wilkins and I are pleased to be back before you today to discuss the Bank’s Monetary Policy Report (MPR), which we published last week. When we were last here in April, we were celebrating the fact that we had upgraded our economic forecast following a […]

  Content Type(s): Press, Speeches and appearances, Opening statements Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Monetary policy, Monetary policy transmission, Potential output, Recent economic and financial developments, Sectoral balance sheet