December 11, 2007
Staff research, Publications
-
-
December 10, 2007
Inflation Targeting, Price-Level Targeting, and Fluctuations in Canada's Terms of Trade
Coletti and Lalonde compare inflation targeting and price-level targeting in the context of a small open economy subject to sizable terms-of-trade shocks. The authors summarize recent research that compares the ability of price-level targeting and inflation targeting to stabilize the macroeconomy when confronted with shocks similar to those experienced by Canada in recent years. Their preliminary results suggest that price-level targeting may represent a feasible alternative to traditional inflation targeting. Their article also provides insight into the direction of current research in this area at the Bank. -
December 6, 2007
More Than Money: Architecture and Art at the Bank of Canada
This volume will take you on a tour of the head office complex, highlighting interesting features of architecture, interior design, and decoration, as well as elements of restoration and preservation. It also features pieces from the Bank's art collection. Soft cover, 128 pages (2007).
-
Electronic Transactions as High-Frequency Indicators of Economic Activity
Since the advent of standard national accounts data over 60 years ago, economists have traditionally relied on monthly or quarterly data supplied by central statistical agencies for macroeconomic modelling and forecasting. -
Uncertainty and the Specificity of Human Capital
This paper studies the choice between general and specific human capital. A trade-off arises because general human capital, while less productive, can easily be reallocated across firms. -
Estimation and Inference by the Method of Projection Minimum Distance
A covariance-stationary vector of variables has a Wold representation whose coefficients can be semi-parametrically estimated by local projections (Jordà, 2005). Substituting the Wold representations for variables in model expressions generates restrictions that can be used by the method of minimum distance to estimate model parameters. -
The Impact of Emerging Asia on Commodity Prices
Over the past 5 years, real energy and non-energy commodity prices have trended sharply higher. These relative price movements have had important implications for inflation and economic activity in both Canada and the rest of the world. China has accounted for the bulk of incremental demand for oil and many base metals over this period. -
Tracking Canadian Trend Productivity: A Dynamic Factor Model with Markov Switching
The author attempts to track Canadian labour productivity over the past four decades using a multivariate dynamic factor model that, in addition to the labour productivity series, includes aggregate compensation and consumption information. Productivity is assumed to switch between two regimes (the high-growth state and the low-growth state) with different trend growth rates according to […] -
Expenditure-Switching Effect and the Choice of Exchange Rate Regime
The author investigates the quantitative importance of the expenditure-switching effect by developing and estimating a structural sticky-price model nesting both producer currency pricing (PCP) and local currency pricing (LCP) settings. -
Testing Uncovered Interest Parity: A Continuous-Time Approach
Nowadays researchers can choose the sampling frequency of exchange rates and interest rates.