Alexander Ueberfeldt is a Senior Policy Director in the Canadian Economic Analysis Department. As a member of the senior leadership team, he helps to oversee the Bank's analysis of the Canadian economy and its research on monetary policy. He also leads the efforts to better understand how structural changes affect the Canadian economy. Prior to this, he was the Senior Managing Research Advisor leading the Heterogeneity Laboratory at the Bank of Canada.
An applied macroeconomist, Alexander’s research recently focused on the interaction of monetary policy and household heterogeneity as well as financial stability. In addition, he has contributed to the understanding of price-level targeting, the risk-taking channel of monetary policy and long-run trends in macro-labour economics. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Minnesota.
Using a structural model, we study the economic consequences of the COVID-19 shock. The uneven consequences, such as higher unemployment among young households, amplify the negative implications for the macroeconomy, household vulnerabilities and consumption inequality. Government support programs have stimulated the economy and lowered inequality and medium-term vulnerabilities.
Financial system vulnerabilities increase the downside risk to future GDP growth. Macroprudential tightening significantly reduces financial stability risks associated with vulnerabilities. Monetary policy faces a trade-off between financial stability and macroeconomic risks.
The theory that rich economic diversity of businesses and households both affects and is shaped by economy-wide fluctuations has strong implications for monetary policy. This review places these insights in a Canadian context.
Financial sector bailouts, while potentially beneficial during a crisis, might lead to excessive risk taking if anticipated. Taking expectations and aggregate risk implications into account, we show that bailouts can be welfare improving, but only if capital adequacy constraints are sufficiently tight.
Monetary policy in the presence of nominal debt and labour supply heterogeneity creates a policy trade-off: a short-term economic stimulus leads to persistently reduced output over the medium term. Price-level targeting weakens this trade-off and is better able to stabilize inflation and output than inflation targeting.
Can central bank and government policies impact the risks around the outlook for GDP growth? We find that fiscal stimulus makes strong GDP growth more likely—even more so when monetary policy is constrained—rather than weak GDP growth less likely. Thus, fiscal stimulus should accelerate the recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Models for macroeconomic forecasts do not usually take into account the risk of a crisis—that is, a sudden large decline in gross domestic product (GDP). However, policy-makers worry about such GDP tail risk because of its large social and economic costs.
We analyze the impact of interest rate policy on financial stability in an environment where banks can experience runs on their short-term liabilities, forcing them to sell assets at fire-sale prices.
We develop a model in which a financial intermediary’s investment in risky assets—risk taking—is excessive due to limited liability and deposit insurance and characterize the policy tools that implement efficient risk taking.
Should monetary policy lean against housing market booms? We approach this question using a small-scale, regime-switching New Keynesian model, where housing market crashes arrive with a logit probability that depends on the level of household debt.
A view advanced in the aftermath of the late-2000s financial crisis is that lower than optimal interest rates lead to excessive risk taking by financial intermediaries.
From 1980 until 2007, U.S. average hours worked increased by thirteen percent, due to a large increase in female hours. At the same time, the U.S. labor wedge, measured as the discrepancy between a representative household's marginal rate of substitution between consumption and leisure and the marginal product of labor, declined substantially.
Various papers have suggested that Price-Level targeting is a welfare improving policy relative to Inflation targeting. From a practical standpoint, this raises an important yet unanswered question: What is the optimal price index to target?
This report examines detailed data on home mortgages to provide a better understanding of the vulnerabilities associated with the mortgage market. The proportion of low-ratio mortgages is growing, particularly in regions with strong house price growth. Moreover, these borrowers exhibit less flexibility to adverse shocks, since they have high debt levels relative to income and have taken mortgages with long amortization periods.
