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Quarterly Financial Report - Third Quarter 2016 - For the period ended 30 September 2016

Growth has slowed in many emerging-market economies (EMEs) since the 2007–09 global financial crisis, reflecting both cyclical and structural factors. In this context, it will be in-creasingly important for EMEs to raise potential growth by maintaining steady progress on structural reforms. How do structural reforms generally support growth? What are the re-form priorities for EMEs over recent history and today? Finally, what will be the impact of planned structural reforms on potential output growth among the world’s larger EMEs? These are some of the questions considered by the authors.

Because commodity prices help determine Canada’s terms of trade, employment, income and, ultimately, inflation, it is important to understand what causes them to fluctuate. Since the early 1900s, there have been four commodity price supercycles—which we define as extended periods of boom and bust that can take decades to complete. Now in its downswing phase, the current supercycle started after growth in China and other emerging-market economies in the mid-1990s resulted in an unexpected demand shock. The extent of this downswing depends on numerous factors that are presently uncertain.

Emergency Lending Assistance (ELA) is a discretionary last-resort collateralized loan or ad-vance by the Bank of Canada to eligible financial institutions (FIs) and financial market infrastructures (FMIs) facing serious liquidity problems. In December 2015, the Bank revised its ELA policy to (i) replace the requirement for an FI’s solvency with the requirement for a credible recovery and resolution framework; (ii) include mortgages as eligible collateral; and (iii) clarify both the eligibility requirements for FMIs and provincially regulated deposit-taking FIs.

The Bank of Canada’s framework for market operations and liquidity provision describes how and when central bank liquidity might be offered with regards to the implementation of monetary policy and for supporting the stability of the Canadian financial system. Market participants can therefore plan their transactions knowing that the Bank stands ready to help manage system liquidity to support its objectives for monetary policy and financial stability.