Is obscuring prices always bad for consumers? The answer depends on the market structure and on the negotiating power between manufacturers and retailers.
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.
We demonstrate the usefulness of payment systems data and machine learning models for macroeconomic predictions and provide a set of econometric tools to overcome associated challenges.
We study the impact of the Bank of Canada’s choice of settlement mechanism in Lynx on participant behaviors, liquidity usage, payment delays and the overall operational efficiency of the new system.
A pilot project on climate transition scenarios by the Bank of Canada and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions assessed climate-related credit and market risks. This report describes the project’s methodologies and provides guidance on implementing them.
Climate transition scenarios clarify climate-related risks to our economy and financial system. This paper summarizes key results of Canada-relevant scenarios developed in a pilot project on climate risk by the Bank of Canada and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for policy-makers to closely monitor disruptions to the retail and food business sectors. We present a new method to measure business opening and closing rates using real-time data from Google Places, the dataset behind the Google Maps service.
Canada is undertaking a major initiative to modernize its payments ecosystem. The modernized ecosystem is expected to bring significant benefits to Canadian financial markets and the overall economy. We develop an empirical framework to quantify the economic benefits of modernizing the payment system in Canada.
In a laboratory experiment, we ask participants to predict inflation using three different policy regimes: inflation targeting—with and without greater communication of the target—average inflation targeting and price level targeting. We use participants’ predictions to compare the level and stability of inflation under each regime.
We characterize the bias in cross-sectional Hill estimates caused by common underlying factors and propose two simple-to-implement remedies. To test for the presence, direction and size of the bias, we use monthly US stock returns and annual US Census county population data.