E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics

• Sources of pandemic-era inflation in Canada: an application of the Bernanke and Blanchard model

  Staff Analytical Note 2024-13 Fares Bounajm, Jean Garry Junior Roc, Yang Zhang

  We explore the drivers of the surge in inflation in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. This work is part of a joint effort by 11 central banks using the model developed by Bernanke and Blanchard (2023) to identify similarities and differences across economies.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Economic models, Inflation and prices, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E3, E31, E37, E5, E52, E6

• Assessing the Impact of the Bank of Canada’s Government Bond Purchases

  Staff Discussion Paper 2024-5 Chinara Azizova, Jonathan Witmer, Xu Zhang

  In March 2020, the Bank of Canada implemented the Government of Canada Bond Purchase Program, eventually purchasing approximately $340 billion of government bonds. In this paper, we analyze the impact of this program on financial market prices and yields as well as on GDP and inflation.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Inflation and prices, Monetary policy, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, E58, G, G2, G21, G28

• Saving after Retirement and Preferences for Residual Wealth

  Staff Working Paper 2024-21 Giulio Fella, Martin B. Holm, Thomas Michael Pugh

  We estimate a model of households in Norway with bequest motives, health-dependent utility, and uncertain longevity and health. Our estimates imply strong bequest motives for households both with and without offspring. We interpret this as suggestive evidence that utility from residual wealth represents forces beyond an altruistic bequest motive.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Fiscal policy, Housing, Labour markets JEL Code(s): D, D1, D11, D12, D14, E, E2, E21

• Markups and Inflation in Oligopolistic Markets: Evidence from Wholesale Price Data

  Staff Working Paper 2024-20 Patrick Alexander, Lu Han, Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Ben Tomlin

  We study how the interaction of market power and nominal price rigidity influences inflation dynamics. We find that pass-through declines with price stickiness when markets are concentrated, which implies a lower slope of the New Keynesian Phillips curve.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Firm dynamics, Inflation and prices, Market structure and pricing, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): D, D4, D43, E, E3, E31, L, L1, L13, L8, L81

• The Macroeconomic Implications of Coholding

  Staff Working Paper 2024-16 Michael Boutros, Andrej Mijakovic

  Coholder households simultaneously carry high-cost credit card debt and low-yield cash. We study the implications of this behavior for fiscal and monetary policy, finding that coholder households have smaller consumption responses in the short run but larger responses in the long run.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Central bank research, Economic models, Fiscal policy, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E4, E44, E6, E62, G, G5, G51

• Finding a Needle in a Haystack: A Machine Learning Framework for Anomaly Detection in Payment Systems

  Staff Working Paper 2024-15 Ajit Desai, Anneke Kosse, Jacob Sharples

  Our layered machine learning framework can enhance real-time transaction monitoring in high-value payment systems, which are a central piece of a country’s financial infrastructure. When tested on data from Canadian payment systems, it demonstrated potential for accurately identifying anomalous transactions. This framework could help improve cyber and operational resilience of payment systems.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Financial institutions, Financial services, Financial system regulation and policies, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C4, C45, C5, C55, D, D8, D83, E, E4, E42

• Endogenous Credibility and Wage-Price Spirals

  Staff Working Paper 2024-14 Olena Kostyshyna, Tolga Özden, Yang Zhang

  We quantitively assess the risks of a wage-price spiral occurring in Canada over history. We find the risk of a wage-price spiral increases when the inflation expectations become unanchored and the credibility of central banks declines.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credibility, Inflation and prices, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, E, E0, E00, E4, E47, E7

• Parallel Tempering for DSGE Estimation

  Staff Working Paper 2024-13 Joshua Brault

  I develop a population-based Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm known as parallel tempering to estimate dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models. Parallel tempering approximates the posterior distribution of interest using a family of Markov chains with tempered posteriors.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Economic models JEL Code(s): C, C1, C11, C15, E, E1, E10

• Potential output in Canada: 2024 assessment

  Staff Analytical Note 2024-11 Tessa Devakos, Christopher Hajzler, Stephanie Houle, Craig Johnston, Antoine Poulin-Moore, Ron Rautu, Temel Taskin

  We expect that potential output in Canada will grow by 2.3% and 2.5% in 2023 and 2024, respectively, and average slightly below 1.7% by 2027 as population growth moderates. Relative to the April 2023 assessment, growth is revised up in 2024, with a larger contribution from trend labour input due to higher-than-anticipated population growth. We revise down our estimates of growth over 2025–26.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Economic models, Labour markets, Monetary policy, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E2, E3, E4, E5

• Assessing global potential output growth: April 2024

  Staff Analytical Note 2024-10 Amor Aniss Benmoussa, Raheeb Dastagir, Eshini Ekanayake, Justin-Damien Guénette, Helen Lao, Jenna Rolland-Mills, Aidan Spencer, Lin Xiang

  This note presents the annual update of Bank of Canada staff estimates for growth in global potential output. These estimates serve as key inputs to the analysis supporting the April 2024 Monetary Policy Report.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E1, E2, F, F0, O, O4