Money in the Bank (of Canada)

With the demise of monetary targeting over the past 20 years in many major countries, the question has arisen as to whether central banks should look at money at all when formulating and conducting monetary policy. The author argues that the mainstream paradigm, which gives no useful role to money, is unlikely to capture the full richness of the transmission mechanism. Moreover, on the face of it, the empirical evidence in Canada is inconsistent with the mainstream paradigm. For these reasons, the Bank of Canada devotes significant attention in its research, analysis, and communication to the behaviour of monetary aggregates and their possible role in the transmission mechanism. This report describes the use of the aggregates as of the end of 2001.