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This study describes a simple model for predicting the real U.S. exchange rate. Starting with a large number of error-correction models, the authors choose the one giving the best out-of-sample forecasts over the period 1992Q3–2002Q1.

Awareness of operational risk has increased greatly in recent years, both at individual financial institutions and for payment, clearing, and settlement systems (PCSS). PCSS consist of networks of interconnected elements (i.e., central operators, participants, and settlement agents); operational problems at any one of the key elements have the potential to disrupt the system as a whole and negatively affect financial stability.

Recent events, such as the East Asian, Mexican, Scandinavian, and Argentinian crises, have sparked considerable interest in exploring how shocks experienced by one country can spread vis-à-vis real and nominal links to other countries' banking systems. Given the large costs associated with banking-system failures, both economists and policy-makers are interested in predicting the onset of banking crises and assessing the likelihood of contagion during crisis events.

With the demise of monetary targeting over the past 20 years in many major countries, the question has arisen as to whether central banks should look at money at all when formulating and conducting monetary policy.

This report discusses the decision not to designate the Automated Clearing Settlement System as a systemically important system, as well as some of the research contributing to that decision.

Significant legislative developments have occurred in Canada's financial services sector over the past decade. This article chronicles those developments and gives an overview of the key provisions contained in Bill C–8, the legislation to reform the sector that came into force in October 2001. The article briefly describes some of the restructuring trends in the financial services sector since the early 1990s and the legislative changes that affected federal financial institutions over the period 1992–2001, as well as the process leading up to the 2001 legislation and some of its key provisions. The 2001 financial sector legislation was wide-ranging. It maintained the principle of wide ownership of large banks and introduced a number of changes, including a holding company option that can give greater organizational flexibility to banks and life insurance companies; the creation of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada to enforce consumer-related provisions as they relate to federal financial institutions; and changes to the Canadian Payments Association and the access to and governance of the payments system.

A series of major international financial crises in the 1990s, and the recent introduction of the euro, have renewed interest in alternative exchange rate systems. The choice of exchange rate regime is particularly relevant for emerging-market countries because other countries are perceived either as having no alternative to their current exchange rate arrangement or as highly unlikely to change. This article examines the evolution of exchange rate regimes in emerging markets over the past decade and compares the strengths and weaknesses of the various available systems. These include intermediate regimes, such as the adjustable pegged exchange rate popular throughout much of the post—war period, and the two extreme exchange rate regimes: permanently fixed or freely floating exchange rate regimes. Two recently proposed alternatives are also evaluated: the Managed Floating Plus and Baskets, Bands, and Crawling Pegs. Both try to combine the best elements of the flexible and fixed exchange rate systems, but the Managed Floating Plus is deemed to be the more promising alternative.