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The author investigates the direct effect of Chinese imported goods on consumer prices in Canada. On average, over the 2001–06 period, the direct effect of consumer goods imported from China is estimated to have reduced the inflation rate by about 0.1 percentage points per year. This disinflationary effect is due to two causes: first, the […]

Using data for 14 countries over the 1994 to 2005 period, we assess the leading indicator properties of gold at horizons ranging from 6 to 24 months.

We develop a five-region version (Canada, an oil exporter, the United States, emerging Asia and Japan plus the euro area) of the Global Economy Model (GEM) encompassing production and trade of crude oil, and use it to study the international transmission mechanism of shocks that drive oil prices.

How do firms adjust prices in the marketplace? Do they tend to adjust prices infrequently in response to changes in market conditions? If so, why? These remain key questions in macroeconomics, particularly for central banks that work to keep inflation low and stable.

We assess the implications of price indexation for estimated frequency of price adjustment in sticky price models of business cycles. These models predominantly assume that non-reoptimized prices are indexed to lagged or average inflation.

Surveys provide direct information on expectations, but only short histories are available at quarterly frequencies or for long-horizon expectations.

In many mainstream macroeconomic models, sticky prices play an important role in explaining the effects of monetary policy on the economy.

The authors study the macroeconomic effects of non-zero trend inflation in a simple dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model with sticky prices.

The authors examine whether simple measures of Canadian equity and housing price misalignments contain leading information about output growth and inflation.

Since the Bank of Canada adopted inflation targeting in 1991, it has focused on a measure of core inflation as a shorter-term guide for monetary policy. When the targets were renewed in 2001, the Bank adopted CPIX as its measure of core inflation because of the advantages it offered. Leflèche and Armour review the experience with CPIX and whether the criteria used to select it in 2001 still favour the measure today. They describe the various measures of core inflation monitored by the Bank and evaluate them on the basis of the volatility of the components, the volatility of the core measures themselves, absence of bias relative to total CPI, predictive power, and certain practical criteria, including timeliness and credibility. They conclude that CPIX still satisfies all the empirical and practical criteria.