E43 - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects

• Narrative-Driven Fluctuations in Sentiment: Evidence Linking Traditional and Social Media

  Staff Working Paper 2023-23 Alistair Macaulay, Wenting Song

  News media present competing interpretations of what breaking news implies for the macroeconomy. Recent examples include news reporting on high inflation and yield curve inversions. Do these narratives shape macroeconomic sentiment? In this paper, we highlight the importance of narratives using evidence linking traditional media and social media.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Inflation and prices, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): D, D8, D84, E, E3, E32, E4, E43, E44, E5, G, G1

• The Canadian Neutral Rate of Interest through the Lens of an Overlapping-Generations Model

  Staff Discussion Paper 2023-5 Martin Kuncl, Dmitry Matveev

  We use a small open economy model with overlapping generations to evaluate secular dynamics of the neutral rate in Canada from 1980 to 2018. We find that changes in both foreign and domestic factors resulted in a protracted decline in the neutral rate.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Economic models, Interest rates, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E22, E4, E43, E5, E50, E52, E58, F, F4, F41

• Gazing at r-star: A Hysteresis Perspective

  Staff Working Paper 2023-5 Paul Beaudry, Katya Kartashova, Césaire Meh

  Many explanations for the decline in real interest rates over the last 30 years point to the role that population aging or rising income inequality plays in increasing the long-run aggregate demand for assets. Notwithstanding the importance of such factors, the starting point of this paper is to show that the major change driving household asset demand over this period is instead an increased desire—for a given age and income level—to hold assets.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Fiscal policy, Inflation and prices, Inflation targets, Interest rates, Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E3, E31, E4, E43, E5, E52, E58, E6, E62, G, G5, G51, H, H6

• Monetary Policy, Credit Constraints and SME Employment

  Staff Working Paper 2022-49 Julien Champagne, Émilien Gouin-Bonenfant

  We revisit an old question: how do financial constraints affect the transmission of monetary policy to the real economy? To answer this question, we propose a simple empirical strategy that combines firm-level employment and balance sheet data, identified monetary policy shocks and survey data on financing activities.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Econometric and statistical methods, Firm dynamics, Labour markets, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E2, E3, E4, E43, E5, E52, G, G3

• Expectation-Driven Term Structure of Equity and Bond Yields

  Staff Working Paper 2022-21 Ming Zeng, Guihai Zhao

  Recent findings on the term structure of equity and bond yields pose serious challenges to existing models of equilibrium asset pricing. This paper presents a new equilibrium model of subjective expectations to explain the joint historical dynamics of equity and bond yields (and their yield spreads).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Financial markets, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, G, G0, G00, G1, G12

• Real Exchange Rate Decompositions

  Staff Discussion Paper 2022-6 Bruno Feunou, Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Ingomar Krohn

  We break down the exchange rate based on an explicit link between fixed income and currency markets. We isolate a foreign exchange risk premium and show it is the main driver of the exchange rate between the Canadian and US dollars, especially on monetary policy and macroeconomic news announcement days.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Exchange rates, International financial markets, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, F, F3, F31, G, G1, G12

• Monetary Policy Spillover to Small Open Economies: Is the Transmission Different under Low Interest Rates?

  Staff Working Paper 2021-62 Jin Cao, Valeriya Dinger, Tomás Gómez, Zuzana Gric, Martin Hodula, Alejandro Jara, Ragnar Juelsrud, Karolis Liaudinskas, Simona Malovaná, Yaz Terajima

  Does the transmission of monetary policy change when interest rates are low or negative? We shed light on this question by analyzing the international bank lending channels of monetary policy using regulatory data on banks from four small open economies: Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic and Norway.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, International topics, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E5, E52, E58, F, F3, F34, F4, F42, G, G2, G21, G28

• Democratic Political Economy of Financial Regulation

  Staff Working Paper 2021-59 Igor Livshits, Youngmin Park

  We offer a theory of how inefficiently lax financial regulation could arise in a democratic society.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Housing, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E44, G, G0, G01, G2, G21, G28, P, P4, P48

• Discount Rates, Debt Maturity, and the Fiscal Theory

  Staff Working Paper 2021-58 Alexandre Corhay, Thilo Kind, Howard Kung, Gonzalo Morales

  Do bond risk premiums influence the effects of debt maturity operations? Using a model with realistic bond risk premiums, we show that maturity operations have sizable effects on expected inflation and output when the central bank passively responds to inflation and the fiscal authority weakly responds to the debt level.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Fiscal policy, Interest rates, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E44, E6, E63, G, G1, G12

• Monetary Policy, Trends in Real Interest Rates and Depressed Demand

  Staff Working Paper 2021-27 Paul Beaudry, Césaire Meh

  Over the last few decades, real interest rates have trended downward. The most common explanation is that this reflects depressed demand due to demographic, technological and other real factors. We explore the claim that these trends may have been amplified by certain features of monetary policy.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Debt management, Economic models, Fiscal policy, Inflation and prices, Interest rates, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E2, E4, E43, E44, E5, E52, E6, E62, E63, H, H3, H6, H63