Bio

Lori Rennison was appointed Senior Policy Director in the International Economic Analysis Department in August 2017. In this capacity, she is a member of the senior leadership team overseeing the Bank’s analysis of global economic developments of relevance for Canada. She also oversees the activities that support the Bank’s participation and help increase its influence in international policy forums, such as the G7 and G20 meetings. She is chair of the G7 Central Bank Working-level Group on Digitalization. In addition, she conducts policy analysis and oversees research on economic issues of importance to monetary policy.

Ms. Rennison joined the Bank in 2007 as Senior Representative (Economics) in the Regional Analysis Division of the Bank of Canada’s Canadian Economic Analysis Department. Between 2011 and 2014, she was Director of the division and was responsible for directing and managing the economic analysis activities of the Bank’s five regional offices (Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montréal and Halifax). This work included carrying out and publishing the quarterly Business Outlook Survey, conducting economic research and supporting the Bank’s communications strategy.

She later took on roles as Senior Policy Advisor in both the International and Canadian Economic Analysis Departments leading the respective departments’ contributions to the Bank of Canada’s Monetary Policy Report. She also served as Senior Policy Director in the Canadian Economic Analysis Department in 2017, overseeing the monitoring and projection teams.

Ms. Rennison worked previously at the Department of Finance as Chief, U.S. Economic Analysis and Forecasting. She began her career in the Micro-Economic Policy Analysis Division of Industry Canada.

Ms. Rennison has a master’s degree in economics from the University of Victoria, and a bachelor of commerce degree in Management Economics in Industry and Finance from the University of Guelph.

Staff analytical notes

The Case of Serial Disappointment

Staff Analytical Note 2016-10 Justin-Damien Guénette, Nicholas Labelle, Martin Leduc, Lori Rennison
Similar to those of other forecasters, the Bank of Canada’s forecasts of global GDP growth have shown persistent negative errors over the past five years. This is in contrast to the pre-crisis period, when errors were consistently positive as global GDP surprised to the upside. All major regions have contributed to the forecast errors observed since 2011, although the United States has been the most persistent source of notable errors.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Domestic demand and components, Economic models, International topics, Monetary policy and uncertainty, Potential output JEL Code(s): E, E2, E27, E6, E66, F, F0, F01

See More

Staff discussion papers

Forward Guidance at the Effective Lower Bound: International Experience

Staff Discussion Paper 2015-15 Karyne B. Charbonneau, Lori Rennison
Forward guidance is one of the policy tools that a central bank can implement if it seeks to provide additional monetary stimulus when it is operating at the effective lower bound (ELB) on interest rates. It became more widely used during and after the global financial crisis.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Monetary policy and uncertainty, Monetary policy communications, Monetary policy framework, Monetary policy implementation, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E5, E52, E58, E6

See More

Bank publications

Bank of Canada Review articles

November 13, 2014

Firm Strategy, Competitiveness and Productivity: The Case for Canada

Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2014 Lori Rennison, Farid Novin, Matthieu Verstraete
At a time when the Bank is expecting a rotation of demand toward exports and investment, and transformative global trends are placing increasing emphasis on innovation, technology and organizational learning, an understanding of the competitiveness strategies of Canadian firms and the factors affecting them has become particularly relevant. This article summarizes findings from a Bank of Canada survey of 151 firms designed to extract signals on elements of firm strategy and organizational capital in order to help inform the macroeconomic outlook.
Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary policy and uncertainty, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D2, D23, D24, E, E2, E22, F, F2, F20, L, L1, L10, L2, L20, M, M1, M10, O, O3, O31, O4, O47
November 17, 2011

Extracting Information from the Business Outlook Survey: A Principal-Component Approach

Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2011 Lise Pichette, Lori Rennison
This article reviews recent work that uses principal-component analysis to extract information common to indicators from the Bank of Canada’s Business Outlook Survey (BOS). The authors use correlation analysis and an out-of-sample forecasting exercise to assess and compare the information content of the principal component with that of responses to key individual survey questions on growth in real gross domestic product and in real business investment. Results suggest that summarizing the common movements among BOS indicators may provide useful information for forecasting near-term growth in business investment. For growth in real gross domestic product, however, the survey’s balance of opinion on future sales growth appears to be more informative.
Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Regional economic developments

See More