Business fluctuations and cycles
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Understanding Post-COVID Inflation Dynamics
We propose a macroeconomic model with a nonlinear Phillips curve that has a flat slope when inflationary pressures are subdued and steepens when inflationary pressures are elevated. Our model can generate more sizable inflation surges due to cost-push and demand shocks than a standard linearized model when inflation is high. -
Canada’s Beveridge curve and the outlook for the labour market
Canada’s labour market is tight but beginning to ease. Unemployment will likely rise in turn, but the economy can avoid a recessionary surge given current conditions. Higher unemployment would nonetheless be material, especially for those directly impacted. -
Behavioral Learning Equilibria in New Keynesian Models
We introduce behavioral learning equilibria (BLE) into DSGE models with boundedly rational agents using simple but optimal first order autoregressive forecasting rules. The Smets-Wouters DSGE model with BLE is estimated and fits well with inflation survey expectations. As a policy application, we show that learning requires a lower degree of interest rate smoothing. -
Sectoral Uncertainty
We propose a new empirical framework that jointly decomposes the conditional variance of economic time series into a common and a sector-specific uncertainty component. We apply our framework to a disaggregated industrial production series for the US economy. We identify unexpected changes in durable goods uncertainty as drivers of downturns, while unexpected hikes in non-durable goods uncertainty are expansionary. -
Weather the Storms? Hurricanes, Technology and Oil Production
Do technological improvements mitigate the potential damages from extreme weather events? We show that hurricanes lower offshore oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and that stronger storms have larger impacts. Regulations enacted in 1980 that required improved offshore construction standards only modestly mitigated the production losses. -
International Transmission of Quantitative Easing Policies: Evidence from Canada
This paper examines the cross-border spillovers from major economies’ quantitative easing (QE) policies to their trading partners. We concentrate on spillovers from the US to Canada during the zero lower bound period when QE policies were actively used. -
Quantum Monte Carlo for Economics: Stress Testing and Macroeconomic Deep Learning
Using the quantum Monte Carlo algorithm, we study whether quantum computing can improve the run time of economic applications and challenges in doing so. We apply the algorithm to two models: a stress testing bank model and a DSGE model solved with deep learning. We also present innovations in the algorithm and benchmark it to classical Monte Carlo. -
Endogenous Liquidity and Capital Reallocation
We study economies where firms acquire capital in primary markets then retrade it in secondary markets after information on idiosyncratic productivity arrives. Our secondary markets incorporate bilateral trade with search, bargaining and liquidity frictions. -
Foreign Exchange Interventions: The Long and the Short of It
This paper studies the effects of foreign exchange (FX) interventions in a two-region model where governments issue both short- and long-term bonds. We find that the term premium channel dominates the trade balance channel in our calibrated model. As a result, the conventional beggar-thy-neighbor effects of interventions are overturned.