January 20, 2021
Staff research, Publications
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January 11, 2021
Business Outlook Survey—Winter 2020–21
In the winter Business Outlook Survey, firms pointed to a continued recovery supported by strengthening domestic and foreign demand, particularly in goods-producing sectors. Still, firms expect the recovery to be uneven; in particular, businesses that have been hit hard by the pandemic anticipate challenging times ahead. -
January 11, 2021
Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations—Fourth Quarter of 2020
The Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations (CSCE) collects respondents’ views on inflation, the labour market and household finances. The survey for the fourth quarter of 2020 was conducted from November 10 to December 1, 2020. This period coincides with a sharp increase in COVID‑19 cases across Canada and follows announcements about the development of effective vaccines. Since the survey was conducted, some provinces have imposed additional measures to contain the spread of the virus. In addition, the first vaccines have begun to be administered. Like the previous two surveys, the fourth-quarter survey included questions on the impacts of COVID‑19 and the measures to contain its spread. This survey also asked respondents how they used any benefits they received from income-support programs that governments put in place to help them through the pandemic. This quarter, the report provides some details by demographic characteristics. -
Allocative Efficiency and the Productivity Slowdown
In our analysis of the US productivity slowdown in the 1970s and 2000s, we find that a significant portion of this deceleration can be attributed to a lack of improvement in allocative efficiency across sectors. Our analysis further identifies increased sector-level volatility as a major contributor to this lack of improvement in allocative efficiency. -
December 31, 2020
Research Update - December 2020
This monthly newsletter features the latest research publications by Bank of Canada economists including external publications and working papers published on the Bank of Canada’s website. -
Consumer Credit with Over-optimistic Borrowers
When lenders cannot directly identify behavioural and rational borrowers, they use type scoring to track the likelihood of a borrower’s type. This leads to the partial pooling of borrowers, which results in rational borrowers subsidizing borrowing costs for behavioural borrowers. This, in turn, reduces the effectiveness of regulatory policies that target mistakes by behavioural borrowers. -
Losing Contact: The Impact of Contactless Payments on Cash Usage
Contactless payment cards are a competitive alternative to cash. Using Canadian panel data from 2010 to 2017, this study investigates whether contactless credit cards are an important contributor to the decline in the transactional use of cash. -
Implementation and Effectiveness of Extended Monetary Policy Tools: Lessons from the Literature
This paper summarizes the literature on the performance of various extended monetary policy tools when conventional policy rates are constrained by the effective lower bound. We highlight issues that may arise when these tools are used by central banks of small open economies. -
A Reference Guide for the Business Outlook Survey
The Business Outlook Survey (BOS) has become an important part of monetary policy deliberations at the Bank of Canada and is also well known in Canadian policy and financial circles. This paper compiles more than 20 years of experience conducting the BOS and serves as a comprehensive reference manual. -
Strategic Uncertainty in Financial Markets: Evidence from a Consensus Pricing Service
We look at the informational content of consensus pricing in opaque over-the-counter markets. We show that the availability of price data informs participants mainly about other participants’ valuations, rather than about the value of a financial security.