Econometric and statistical methods

• November 7, 2017

  Understanding Inflation: Getting Back to Basics

  Remarks Stephen S. Poloz CFA Montréal and Montreal Council on Foreign Relations Montréal, Quebec

  Governor Stephen S. Poloz discusses how recent weak inflation in Canada and other economies can be explained by fundamental factors.

  Content Type(s): Press, Speeches and appearances, Remarks Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Economic models, Inflation and prices, Labour markets, Monetary policy, Monetary policy implementation

• Identification of Random Resource Shares in Collective Households Without Preference Similarity Restrictions

  Staff Working Paper 2017-45 Geoffrey R. Dunbar, Arthur Lewbel, Krishna Pendakur

  Resource shares, defined as the fraction of total household spending going to each person in a household, are important for assessing individual material well-being, inequality and poverty. They are difficult to identify because consumption is measured typically at the household level, and many goods are jointly consumed, so that individual-level consumption in multi-person households is not directly observed.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Domestic demand and components, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C3, C31, D, D1, D11, D12, D13, I, I3, I32

• The Mode is the Message: Using Predata as Exclusion Restrictions to Evaluate Survey Design

  Staff Working Paper 2017-43 Heng Chen, Geoffrey R. Dunbar, Rallye Shen

  Changes in survey mode (e.g., online, offline) may influence the values of survey responses, and may be particularly problematic when comparing repeated cross-sectional surveys.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C8

• What’s Up with Unit Non-Response in the Bank of Canada’s Business Outlook Survey? The Effect of Staff Tenure

  Staff Discussion Paper 2017-11 Sarah Miller, David Amirault, Laurent Martin

  Since 1997, the Bank of Canada’s regional offices have been conducting the Business Outlook Survey (BOS), a quarterly survey of business conditions. Survey responses are gathered through face-to-face, confidential consultations with a sample of private sector firms representative of the various sectors, firm sizes and regions across Canada.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Firm dynamics, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): C, C2, C21, C8, C81, D, D2, D22

• A Dynamic Factor Model for Commodity Prices

  Staff Analytical Note 2017-12 Doga Bilgin, Reinhard Ellwanger

  In this note, we present the Commodities Factor Model (CFM), a dynamic factor model for a large cross-section of energy and non-energy commodity prices. The model decomposes price changes in commodities into a common “global” component, a “block” component confined to subgroups of economically related commodities and an idiosyncratic price shock component.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): C, C5, C51, Q, Q0, Q02

• Changes in Monetary Regimes and the Identification of Monetary Policy Shocks: Narrative Evidence from Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2017-39 Julien Champagne, Rodrigo Sekkel

  We use narrative evidence along with a novel database of real-time data and forecasts from the Bank of Canada's staff economic projections from 1974 to 2015 to construct a new measure of monetary policy shocks and estimate the effects of monetary policy in Canada.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Central bank research, Econometric and statistical methods, Exchange rate regimes, Inflation and prices, Inflation targets, Interest rates, Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32, E4, E43, E5, E52, E58

• Did the Renewable Fuel Standard Shift Market Expectations of the Price of Ethanol?

  Staff Working Paper 2017-35 Christiane Baumeister, Reinhard Ellwanger, Lutz Kilian

  It is commonly believed that the response of the price of corn ethanol (and hence of the price of corn) to shifts in biofuel policies operates in part through market expectations and shifts in storage demand, yet to date it has proved difficult to measure these expectations and to empirically evaluate this view.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): Q, Q1, Q18, Q2, Q28, Q4, Q42, Q5, Q58

• Optimal Estimation of Multi-Country Gaussian Dynamic Term Structure Models Using Linear Regressions

  Staff Working Paper 2017-33 Antonio Diez de los Rios

  This paper proposes a novel asymptotic least-squares estimator of multi-country Gaussian dynamic term structure models that is easy to compute and asymptotically efficient, even when the number of countries is relatively large—a situation in which other recently proposed approaches lose their tractability.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Asset pricing, Econometric and statistical methods, Exchange rates, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, F, F3, F31, G, G1, G12, G15

• How to Predict Financial Stress? An Assessment of Markov Switching Models

  Staff Working Paper 2017-32 Benjamin Klaus, Thibaut Duprey

  This paper predicts phases of the financial cycle by using a continuous financial stress measure in a Markov switching framework. The debt service ratio and property market variables signal a transition to a high financial stress regime, while economic sentiment indicators provide signals for a transition to a tranquil state.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Central bank research, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Monetary and financial indicators JEL Code(s): C, C5, C54, G, G0, G01, G1, G15

• Detecting Scapegoat Effects in the Relationship Between Exchange Rates and Macroeconomic Fundamentals

  Staff Working Paper 2017-22 Lorenzo Pozzi, Barbara Sadaba

  This paper presents a new testing method for the scapegoat model of exchange rates that aims to tighten the link between the theory on scapegoats and its empirical implementation. This new testing method consists of a number of steps.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Exchange rates, International financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, F, F3, F31, G, G1, G15