April 4, 2022
Staff research, Publications
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April 4, 2022
Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations—First Quarter of 2022
This survey took place in mid-February 2022 before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Follow-up interviews took place in March and provide some insight into how consumers perceive the effects of the conflict. Short-term inflation expectations have reached record-high levels because of supply disruptions and the COVID 19 pandemic. Consumers think the Russian invasion of Ukraine will make high inflation worse. Despite greater concerns about inflation today, longer-term expectations have remained stable and are below pre-pandemic levels. This suggests that long-term inflation expectations remain well anchored and that survey respondents believe the current rise in inflation will not last. Although workers anticipate significant price increases in the near term, they believe their wages will increase only modestly. This is a source of dissatisfaction for them. Despite expecting higher interest rates, consumers continue to anticipate strong spending growth on a broad range of goods and services. -
Contribution of Human Capital Accumulation to Canadian Economic Growth
This paper quantifies the contribution of human capital accumulation to the growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) in Canada. -
March 31, 2022
Research Update - March 2022
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. -
Real Exchange Rate Decompositions
We break down the exchange rate based on an explicit link between fixed income and currency markets. We isolate a foreign exchange risk premium and show it is the main driver of the exchange rate between the Canadian and US dollars, especially on monetary policy and macroeconomic news announcement days. -
Equilibrium in Two-Sided Markets for Payments: Consumer Awareness and the Welfare Cost of the Interchange Fee
We construct and estimate a structural two-stage model of equilibrium in a market for payments in order to quantify the network externalities and identify the main determinants of consumer and merchant decisions. -
Job Ladder and Business Cycles
During downturns, workers get stuck in low-productivity jobs and wages remain stagnant. I build an heterogenous agent incomplete market model with a full job ladder that accounts for these facts. An adverse financial shock calibrated to the US Great Recession replicates the period’s slow recovery and missing disinflation. -
Vertical Bargaining and Obfuscation
Is obscuring prices always bad for consumers? The answer depends on the market structure and on the negotiating power between manufacturers and retailers. -
COVID-19, Containment and Consumption
We assess the impact of COVID-19 on consumption indicators by estimating the effects of government-mandated containment measures and of the willingness of individuals to voluntarily physically distance to prevent contagion. -
Household Heterogeneity and the Performance of Monetary Policy Frameworks
Consumption inequality and a low interest rate environment are two important trends in today’s economy. But the implications they may have—and how those implications interact—within different monetary policy frameworks are not well understood. We study the ranking of alternative frameworks that take these trends into account.