November 13, 2014
E5 - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
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On the Importance of Sales for Aggregate Price Flexibility
Macroeconomists have traditionally ignored the behavior of temporary price markdowns (“sales”) by retailers. Although sales are common in the micro price data, they are assumed to be unrelated to macroeconomic phenomena and generally filtered out. -
Integrating Uncertainty and Monetary Policy-Making: A Practitioner’s Perspective
This paper discusses how central banking is evolving in light of recent experience, with particular emphasis on the incorporation of uncertainty into policy decision-making. -
International Transmission Channels of U.S. Quantitative Easing: Evidence from Canada
The U.S. Federal Reserve responded to the great recession by reducing policy rates to the effective lower bound. In order to provide further monetary stimulus, they subsequently conducted large-scale asset purchases, quadrupling their balance sheet in the process. -
The Neutral Rate of Interest in Canada
A measure of the neutral policy interest rate can be used to gauge the stance of monetary policy. We define the neutral rate as the real policy rate consistent with output at its potential level and inflation equal to target after the effects of all cyclical shocks have dissipated. -
Global Inflation Dynamics in the Post-Crisis Period: What Explains the Twin Puzzle?
Inflation dynamics in advanced countries have produced two consecutive puzzles during the years after the global financial crisis. The first puzzle emerged when inflation rates over the period 2009-11 were consistently higher than expected, although economic slack in advanced countries reached its highest level in recent history. -
Housework and Fiscal Expansions
We build an otherwise-standard business cycle model with housework, calibrated consistently with data on time use, in order to discipline consumption-hours complementarity and relate its strength to the size of fiscal multipliers. -
Understanding the Cash Demand Puzzle
We develop a model to explain a puzzling trend in cash demand in recent years: the value of bank notes in circulation as a percentage of GDP has remained stable despite decreasing cash usage at points of sale owing to competition from alternative means of payment such as credit cards. -
Consumer Cash Usage: A Cross-Country Comparison with Payment Diary Survey Data
We measure consumers’ use of cash by harmonizing payment diary surveys from seven countries. The seven diary surveys were conducted in 2009 (Canada), 2010 (Australia), 2011 (Austria, France, Germany and the Netherlands), and 2012 (the United States). -
May 13, 2014
The Canadian Dollar as a Reserve Currency
This article provides an overview of the growth of Canadian-dollar-denominated assets in official foreign reserves. Based on International Monetary Fund data and on internal Bank of Canada analysis, we estimate that the total reserve holdings of Canadian-dollar assets increased from negligible levels before 2008 to around US$200 billion in the third quarter of 2013. We discuss the determinants of this increase, as well as its potential impact on Canadian debt markets, for example, lower yields and therefore reduced financing costs for the Government of Canada, and the possible negative impact on market liquidity.