Technical Reports

• Inflation Targeting under Uncertainty

  Technical Report No. 85 Gabriel Srour

  This paper studies the implications of certain kinds of uncertainty for monetary policy. It first describes the optimum policy rule in a simple model of the transmission mechanism as in Ball and Svensson.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Monetary policy and uncertainty, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52

• Yield Curve Modelling at the Bank of Canada

  Technical Report No. 84 David Bolder, David Stréliski

  The primary objective of this paper is to produce a framework that could be used to construct a historical data base of zero-coupon and forward yield curves estimated from Government of Canada securities' prices.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Economic models

• The Benefits of Low Inflation: Taking Stock

  Technical Report No. 83 Brian O'Reilly

  This paper surveys the empirical literature on the benefits of low inflation, emphasizing contributions since 1990. It follows the framework of a section in the Bank's 1990 Annual Report, "The benefits of price stability."

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Inflation: costs and benefits JEL Code(s): E, E3

• The Financial Services Sector: Past Changes and Future Prospects

  Technical Report No. 82 Charles Freedman, Clyde Goodlet

  The financial services industry has been undergoing significant change in recent years. This paper analyzes some key developments affecting the industry and examines some important issues facing the industry and its regulators.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Financial services JEL Code(s): G, G2

• The Canadian Banking System

  Technical Report No. 81 Charles Freedman

  This paper examines the major changes in the Canadian banking system since the Second World War, with special attention paid to the differences between Canadian and U.S. developments over this period.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Financial institutions JEL Code(s): G, G2

• Constraints on the Conduct of Canadian Monetary Policy in the 1990s: Dealing with Uncertainty in Financial Markets

  Technical Report No. 80 Kevin Clinton, Mark Zelmer

  Canada's economic performance in the first half of the 1990s was adversely affected by high premiums in interest rates that were brought on by political and economic uncertainties.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Monetary policy and uncertainty, Monetary policy implementation, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5, E58

• Measurement of the Output Gap: A Discussion of Recent Research at the Bank of Canada

  Technical Report No. 79 Pierre St-Amant, Simon van Norden

  In this paper, we discuss some methodologies for estimating potential output and the output gap that have recently been studied at the Bank of Canada. The assumptions and econometric techniques used by the different methodologies are discussed in turn, and applications to Canadian data are presented.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Potential output JEL Code(s): D, D2, D24

• Do Mechanical Filters Provide a Good Approximation of Business Cycles?

  Technical Report No. 78 Alain Guay, Pierre St-Amant

  In this paper, the authors examine how well the Hodrick-Prescott filter (HP) and the band-pass filter recently proposed by Baxter and King (BK) extract the business-cycle component of macroeconomic time series.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C5, C52, E, E3, E32

• The Bank of Canada's New Quarterly Projection Model, Part 4. A Semi-Structural Method to Estimate Potential Output: Combining Economic Theory with a Time-Series Filter

  Technical Report No. 77 Leo Butler

  The level of potential output plays a central role in the Bank of Canada's new Quarterly Projection Model (QPM). This report, the fourth in a series documenting QPM, describes a general method to measure potential output, as well as its implementation in the QPM system.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Economic models JEL Code(s): C, C5, C51, E, E2, E23

• Excess Volatility and Speculative Bubbles in the Canadian Dollar: Real or Imagined?

  Technical Report No. 76 John Murray, Simon van Norden, Robert Vigfusson

  Greater intervention by the public sector is often proposed as a solution to the increased speculation and excessive price volatility thought to characterize today's competitive world financial system.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Exchange rates JEL Code(s): C, C4, C40, F, F3, F31