Bio

Geoffrey Dunbar is a Senior Research Advisor in the International Economic Analysis Department at the Bank of Canada. His research focuses on both applied microeconomics and macroeconomics with a current interest on the effects of extreme weather events for commodities and trade. Previous research interests have included exchange rates and the role of family demographics on inequality and productivity. He received his PhD in economics from Queen’s University.

Research Field(s): Applied Econometrics Inequality International Trade and Finance

Staff analytical notes

The Effects of Inflation Targeting for Financial Development

Staff Analytical Note 2019-21 Geoffrey R. Dunbar, Amy (Qijia) Li
The adoption of inflation targeting (IT) by central banks leads to an increase of 10 to 20 percent in measures of financial development, with a lag. We also find evidence that the financial sector benefits of IT adoption were higher for early-adopting central banks.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial institutions, Inflation targets, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, E5, E58

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Staff discussion papers

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Staff working papers

Preferences, Monetary Policy and Household Inflation

Staff Working Paper 2024-45 Geoffrey R. Dunbar
I quantify the importance of changes in household preferences on household inflation rates using 11 years of scanner data for 11,000 US households. My results suggest that changes in household preferences are an important driver of inflation dynamics at the household level.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, E, E5, E52, E58

Climate Variability and International Trade

Staff Working Paper 2023-8 Geoffrey R. Dunbar, Walter Steingress, Ben Tomlin
This paper quantifies the impact of hurricanes on seaborne international trade to the United States. Matching the timing of hurricane–trade route intersections with monthly U.S. port-level trade data, we isolate the unanticipated effects of a hurricane hitting a trade route using two separate identification schemes: an event study and a local projection.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Climate change, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, C5, F, F1, F14, F18, Q, Q5, Q54

Are Temporary Oil Supply Shocks Real?

Staff Working Paper 2022-52 Johan Brannlund, Geoffrey R. Dunbar, Reinhard Ellwanger
Hurricanes disrupt oil production in the Gulf of Mexico because producers shut in oil platforms to safeguard lives and prevent damage. We examine the effects of these temporary oil supply shocks on real economic activity in the United States.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32, Q, Q3, Q31, Q4, Q41, Q43

Weather the Storms? Hurricanes, Technology and Oil Production

Staff Working Paper 2022-36 Johan Brannlund, Geoffrey R. Dunbar, Reinhard Ellwanger, Matthew Krutkiewicz
Do technological improvements mitigate the potential damages from extreme weather events? We show that hurricanes lower offshore oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and that stronger storms have larger impacts. Regulations enacted in 1980 that required improved offshore construction standards only modestly mitigated the production losses.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Climate change, Potential output JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, C23, Q, Q4, Q40, Q48, Q5, Q54

Uncovered Return Parity: Equity Returns and Currency Returns

Staff Working Paper 2018-22 Edouard Djeutem, Geoffrey R. Dunbar
We propose an uncovered expected returns parity (URP) condition for the bilateral spot exchange rate. URP implies that unilateral exchange rate equations are misspecified and that equity returns also affect exchange rates. Fama regressions provide evidence that URP is statistically preferred to uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) for nominal bilateral exchange rates between the US dollar and six countries (Australia, Canada, Japan, Norway, Switzerland and the UK) at the monthly frequency.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Exchange rates, International financial markets JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, F, F3, F31, G, G1, G15

The (Un)Demand for Money in Canada

Staff Working Paper 2018-20 Casey Jones, Geoffrey R. Dunbar
A novel dataset from the Bank of Canada is used to estimate the deposit functions for banknotes in Canada for three denominations: $1,000, $100 and $50. The broad flavour of the empirical findings is that denominations are different monies, and the structural estimates identify the underlying sources of the non-neutrality.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C3, C31, C36, E, E4, E41

Identification of Random Resource Shares in Collective Households Without Preference Similarity Restrictions

Staff Working Paper 2017-45 Geoffrey R. Dunbar, Arthur Lewbel, Krishna Pendakur
Resource shares, defined as the fraction of total household spending going to each person in a household, are important for assessing individual material well-being, inequality and poverty. They are difficult to identify because consumption is measured typically at the household level, and many goods are jointly consumed, so that individual-level consumption in multi-person households is not directly observed.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Domestic demand and components, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C3, C31, D, D1, D11, D12, D13, I, I3, I32

Sheltered Income: Estimating Income Under-Reporting in Canada, 1998 and 2004

Staff Working Paper 2015-22 Geoffrey R. Dunbar, Chunling Fu
We use data from the Survey of Financial Security and the Survey of Household Spending to estimate the incidence and extent of income under-reporting in Canada in 1998 and 2004. We estimate that the proportion of households under-reporting income is roughly 35 to 50 per cent in both years.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Domestic demand and components JEL Code(s): H, H2, H26, I, I3, I32, K, K4, K42

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Journal publications

Journal articles

  • Weather the Storms? Hurricane Technology and Oil Production (with J. Brannlund, R. Ellwanger and M. Krutkiewicz), Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2023, 122 (October).
  • Uncovered Return Parity: Equity Returns and Currency Returns (with E Djeutem), Journal of International Money and Finance, 2022, 128 (November).
  • Identification of Random Resource Shares in Collective Households Without Preference Similarity Restrictions (with A. Lewbel and K. Pendakur), Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 2021, 39:2, 402-421.
  • The Mode is the Message: Using Predata as Exclusion Restrictions to Evaluate Survey Design (with Heng Chen and Rallye Shen), Advances in Econometrics: Essays in Honor of Chong Hsiao, 2020, Vol 41.
  • Demographics and the Demand for Currency, Empirical Economics, 2018, doi.org/10.1007/s00181-018-1486-8.
  • Rationalizing Irrational Beliefs (with Ruqu Wang and Xiaoting Wang), Theoretical Economics Letters, 2016, vol. 6, 1219-1229. doi: 10.4236/tel.2016.66115.
  • "Identification of Random Resource Shares in Collective Households Without Preference Similarity Restrictions,"
    (with Arthur Lewbel and Krishna Pendakur), Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, October 2019.
  • "Seasonal adjustment, demography, and GDP growth,"
    Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, Vol. 46(3), pages 811-835, August 2013.
  • "Working parents and total factor productivity growth,"
    Journal of Population Economics, (with Stephen Easton). Springer, Vol. 26(4), pages 1431-1456, October 2013.
  • "The Family and Medical Leave Act and the labor productivity of parents,"
    Economics Letters, Elsevier, Vol. 118(2), pages 334-336, 2013.
  • "Returns-to-scale and the equity premium puzzle,"
    Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, Vol. 37(9), pages 1736-1754, 2013.
  • "Children's Resources in Collective Households: Identification, Estimation, and an Application to Child Poverty in Malawi,"
    (with Arthur Lewbel and Krishna Pendakur), American Economic Review, American Economic Association, Vol. 103(1), pages 438-71, February, 2013.