Staff research

• March 31, 2018

  Research Update - March 2018

  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.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Research newsletters

• Firm Dynamics and Multifactor Productivity: An Empirical Exploration

  Staff Working Paper 2018-15 Pierre St-Amant, David Tessier

  There are indications that business dynamism has declined in advanced economies. In particular, firm entry and exit rates have fallen, suggesting that the creative destruction process has lost some of its vitality. Meanwhile, productivity growth has slowed. Some believe that lower entry and exit rates partly explain the weaker productivity growth.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Firm dynamics, Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D2, D24, M, M1, M13, O, O4, O47

• Did Canadian Corporate Bond Funds Increase their Exposures to Risks?

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-7 Rohan Arora, Nadeem Merali, Guillaume Ouellet Leblanc

  Canadian corporate bond mutual funds have rapidly increased in number and size in recent years. Their holdings have also become riskier, increasing their exposures to credit risk, interest rate risk and liquidity risk. We also briefly discuss financial stability implications.

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

• State Correlation and Forecasting: A Bayesian Approach Using Unobserved Components Models

  Staff Working Paper 2018-14 Luis Uzeda

  Implications for signal extraction from specifying unobserved components (UC) models with correlated or orthogonal innovations have been well investigated. In contrast, the forecasting implications of specifying UC models with different state correlation structures are less well understood.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): C, C1, C11, C15, C5, C51, C53

• Did U.S. Consumers Respond to the 2014–2015 Oil Price Shock? Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey

  Staff Working Paper 2018-13 Patrick Alexander, Louis Poirier

  The impact of oil price shocks on the U.S. economy is a topic of considerable debate. In this paper, we examine the response of U.S. consumers to the 2014–2015 negative oil price shock using representative survey data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Domestic demand and components, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, E, E2, E21, Q, Q4, Q43

• Asymmetric Risks to the Economic Outlook Arising from Financial System Vulnerabilities

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-6 Thibaut Duprey

  When financial system vulnerabilities are elevated, they can give rise to asymmetric risks to the economic outlook. To illustrate this, I consider the economic outlook presented in the Bank of Canada’s October 2017 Monetary Policy Report in the context of two key financial system vulnerabilities: high levels of household indebtedness and housing market imbalances.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Monetary and financial indicators, Monetary policy and uncertainty, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): C, C0, C01, C1, C11, C15, E, E1, E17, E3, E32, E37, E4, E44, E47, E5, E58, E6, E66, G, G0, G01, G1, G18

• Can Media and Text Analytics Provide Insights into Labour Market Conditions in China?

  Staff Working Paper 2018-12 Jeannine Bailliu, Xinfen Han, Mark Kruger, Yu-Hsien Liu, Sri Thanabalasingam

  The official Chinese labour market indicators have been seen as problematic, given their small cyclical movement and their only-partial capture of the labour force. In our paper, we build a monthly Chinese labour market conditions index (LMCI) using text analytics applied to mainland Chinese-language newspapers over the period from 2003 to 2017.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics, Labour markets JEL Code(s): C, C3, C38, C5, C55, E, E2, E24, E27

• Blockchain Revolution Without the Blockchain

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-5 Hanna Halaburda

  The technology behind blockchain has attracted a lot of attention. However, this technology is for the most part not well understood. There is no consensus on what benefits it may bring or on how it may fail.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Recent economic and financial developments, Service sector JEL Code(s): D, D8, G, G2, O, O3, O33

• The Macroeconomic Effects of Quantitative Easing in the Euro Area: Evidence from an Estimated DSGE Model

  Staff Working Paper 2018-11 Stefan Hohberger, Romanos Priftis, Lukas Vogel

  This paper estimates an open-economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with Bayesian techniques to analyse the macroeconomic effects of the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) quantitative easing (QE) programme. Using data on government debt stocks and yields across maturities, we identify the parameter governing portfolio adjustment in the private sector.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Interest rates, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, E5, E52, F, F4, F41

• Dismiss the Gap? A Real-Time Assessment of the Usefulness of Canadian Output Gaps in Forecasting Inflation

  Staff Working Paper 2018-10 Lise Pichette, Marie-Noëlle Robitaille, Mohanad Salameh, Pierre St-Amant

  We use a new real-time database for Canada to study various output gap measures. This includes recently developed measures based on models incorporating many variables as inputs (and therefore requiring real-time data for many variables).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices, Potential output JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, E, E3, E37