Staff analytical notes

• Reassessing the Growth of HELOCs in Canada Using New Regulatory Data

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-14 Leila Al-Mqbali, Olga Bilyk, Stefan Caputo, James Younker

  Using new regulatory data on residential secured lending from Canadian banks, we assess the growth rate of home equity lines of credit (HELOCs).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Financial institutions, Financial stability, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): D, D1, G, G2, G21, G28

• Assessing Global Potential Output Growth: April 2019

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-13 Fares Bounajm, Jean-Philippe Cayen, Michael Francis, Christopher Hajzler, Kristina Hess, Guillaume Poulin-Bellisle, Peter Selcuk

  This note presents the updated estimates of potential output growth for the global economy through 2021. Global potential output is expected to grow by 3.3 per cent per year over the projection horizon.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): International topics, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E1, E10, E2, E20, O, O4

• Disentangling the Factors Driving Housing Resales

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-12 Mikael Khan, Taylor Webley

  We use a recently developed model and loan-level microdata to decompose movements in housing resales since 2015. We find that fundamental factors, namely housing affordability and full-time employment, have had offsetting effects on resales over our study period.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Housing, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, E, E2, R, R2, R21

• The Neutral Rate in Canada: 2019 Update

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-11 Thomas J. Carter, Xin Scott Chen, José Dorich

  This note provides an update on Bank of Canada staff’s assessment of the Canadian neutral rate. The neutral rate is the policy rate needed to keep output at its potential level and inflation at target once the effects of any cyclical shocks have dissipated. This medium- to long-run concept serves as a benchmark for gauging the degree of monetary stimulus provided by a given policy setting.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Economic models, Interest rates, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E4, E40, E43, E5, E50, E52, E58, F, F4, F41

• Potential Output in Canada: 2019 Reassessment

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-10 Dany Brouillette, Julien Champagne, Carol Khoury, Natalia Kyui, Jeffrey Mollins, Youngmin Park

  Potential output is expected to grow on average at 1.8 per cent over 2019–21 and at 1.9 per cent in 2022. While the contribution of trend labour input to potential output growth is expected to decrease between 2019 and 2022, the contribution of trend labour productivity is projected to increase.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Labour markets, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E0, E00, E2, E22, E23, E24, E3, E37, E6

• Could Canadian Bond Funds Add Stress to the Financial System?

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-9 Rohan Arora, Guillaume Bédard-Pagé, Guillaume Ouellet Leblanc, Ryan Shotlander

  We create a hypothetical scenario to study the role bond funds play in intensifying shocks to the financial system. Using data from 2018 and 2007, we find that bond funds play a larger role now than they did in the past.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial stability JEL Code(s): G, G1, G2, G20, G23

• Non-Resident Taxes and the Role of House Price Expectations

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-8 Mikael Khan, Matthieu Verstraete

  In recent years, the governments of Ontario and British Columbia have imposed taxes on purchases by non-Canadian residents of residential properties in certain jurisdictions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial stability, Housing JEL Code(s): D, D8, D84, R, R2, R21

• Liquidity Management of Canadian Corporate Bond Mutual Funds: A Machine Learning Approach

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-7 Rohan Arora, Chen Fan, Guillaume Ouellet Leblanc

  When redeeming shares for investors, bond fund managers must choose a mix of cash and bond sales to honour their commitments. This note uses machine learning algorithms to uncover new patterns in decisions fund managers make to meet redemptions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial stability JEL Code(s): G, G1, G2, G20, G23

• The Size and Characteristics of Informal (“Gig”) Work in Canada

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-6 Olena Kostyshyna, Corinne Luu

  Underlying wage growth has fallen short of what would be consistent with an economy operating with little or no slack. While many factors could explain this weakness, the availability of additional labour resources from informal (“gig”) work—not fully captured in standard measures of employment and hours worked—may play a role.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Labour markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E26, J, J2, J20, J3, J30, J4

• Canada’s Monetary Policy Report: If Text Could Speak, What Would It Say?

  Staff Analytical Note 2019-5 André Binette, Dmitri Tchebotarev

  This note analyzes the evolution of the narrative in the Bank of Canada’s Monetary Policy Report (MPR). It presents descriptive statistics on the core text, including length, most frequently used words and readability level—the three Ls. Although each Governor of the Bank of Canada focuses on the macroeconomic events of the day and the mandate of inflation targeting, we observe that the language used in the MPR varies somewhat from one Governor’s tenure to the next.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Central bank research, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E0, E02, E5, E52