E3 - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

• The Framework for Risk Identification and Assessment

  Technical Report No. 113 Cameron MacDonald, Virginie Traclet

  Risk assessment models are an important component of the Bank’s analytical tool kit for assessing the resilience of the financial system. We describe the Framework for Risk Identification and Assessment (FRIDA), a suite of models developed at the Bank of Canada to quantify the impact of financial stability risks to the broader economy and a range of financial system participants (households, businesses and banks).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Economic models, Financial institutions, Financial stability, Housing JEL Code(s): C, C3, C5, C6, C7, D, D1, E, E0, E00, E2, E27, E3, E37, E4, E47, G, G0, G2, G21

• Evaluating the Bank of Canada Staff Economic Projections Using a New Database of Real-Time Data and Forecasts

  Staff Working Paper 2018-52 Julien Champagne, Guillaume Poulin-Bellisle, Rodrigo Sekkel

  We present a novel database of real-time data and forecasts from the Bank of Canada’s staff economic projections. We then provide a forecast evaluation for GDP growth and CPI inflation since 1982: we compare the staff forecasts with those from commonly used time-series models estimated with real-time data and with forecasts from other professional forecasters and provide standard bias tests.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Economic models, Inflation targets, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, E, E1, E17, E3, E37

• Characterizing the Canadian Financial Cycle with Frequency Filtering Approaches

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-34 Andrew Lee-Poy

  In this note, I use two multivariate frequency filtering approaches to characterize the Canadian financial cycle by capturing fluctuations in the underlying variables with respect to a long-term trend. The first approach is a dynamically weighted composite, and the second is a stochastic cycle model.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability, Monetary and financial indicators, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): C, C0, C01, C1, C13, C14, C18, C3, C32, C5, C51, C52, E, E3, E32, E6, E66, G, G0, G01, G1, G18

• Introducing a Systematic Measure of Idiosyncratic Prices

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-33 Madigan Dockrill, Laurence Savoie-Chabot

  There is a risk that Bank of Canada staff may inadvertently be biased when analyzing inflation: when inflation surprises on the downside, staff might emphasize negative idiosyncratic factors. When inflation surprises on the upside, staff might emphasize the positive idiosyncratic factors.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31

• Price Selection

  Staff Working Paper 2018-44 Carlos Carvalho, Oleksiy Kryvtsov

  We propose a simple, model-free way to measure selection in price setting and its contribution to inflation dynamics. The proposed measure of price selection is based on the observed comovement between inflation and the average level from which adjusting prices depart.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Inflation and prices, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, E51

• Sluggish Forecasts

  Staff Working Paper 2018-39 Monica Jain

  Given the influence that agents’ expectations have on key macroeconomic variables, it is surprising that very few papers have tried to extrapolate agents’ “true” expectations directly from the data. This paper presents one such approach, starting with the hypothesis that there is sluggishness in inflation and real GDP growth forecasts.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E37

• Nowcasting Canadian Economic Activity in an Uncertain Environment

  Staff Discussion Paper 2018-9 Tony Chernis, Rodrigo Sekkel

  This paper studies short-term forecasting of Canadian real GDP and its expenditure components using combinations of nowcasts from different models. Starting with a medium-sized data set, we use a suite of common nowcasting tools for quarterly real GDP and its expenditure components.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, E, E3, E37, E5, E52

• On the Evolution of the United Kingdom Price Distributions

  Staff Working Paper 2018-25 Ba M. Chu, Kim Huynh, David T. Jacho-Chávez, Oleksiy Kryvtsov

  We propose a functional principal components method that accounts for stratified random sample weighting and time dependence in the observations to understand the evolution of distributions of monthly micro-level consumer prices for the United Kingdom (UK).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): C, C1, C14, C8, C83, E, E3, E31, E37

• Bending the Curves: Wages and Inflation

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-15 Dany Brouillette, Madigan Dockrill, Helen Lao, Laurence Savoie-Chabot

  As economic slack continues to be absorbed and the labour market tightens, wage growth and inflation could increase faster than expected, which would suggest convexity in their Phillips curves. This note investigates whether there is convexity in the Phillips curves for Canadian wage growth and inflation by testing different empirical approaches over the post-inflation-targeting period.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E3, E31, J, J3

• Potential Output in Canada: 2018 Reassessment

  Staff Analytical Note 2018-10 Andrew Agopsowicz, Dany Brouillette, Bassirou Gueye, Julien McDonald-Guimond, Jeffrey Mollins, Youngmin Park

  This note summarizes the reassessment of potential output, conducted by the Bank of Canada for the April 2018 Monetary Policy Report. Overall, the profile for potential output growth is expected to remain flat at 1.8 per cent between 2018 and 2020 and 1.9 per cent in 2021.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Labour markets, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E0, E00, E2, E22, E23, E24, E3, E37, E6