Search

Given this failure, the G-20’s agenda to reshape the global financial system is comprehensive and radical. The coming weeks and months will be pivotal to its success. The time for debate and discussion is drawing to a close. Policymakers now need to decide and to implement.

As the title of the conference suggests, we have seen many boom-and-bust cycles in the commodity sector. This raises one obvious and central question: How can we avoid them in the future?

Eligible Collateral for the Securities-Lending Program The list of eligible collateral for the Bank's securities-lending program will consist of the following: Securities issued by the Government of Canada. Government of Canada stripped coupons and residuals. Securities guaranteed by the Government of Canada (including Canada Mortgage Bonds and NHA mortgage-backed securities (MBS) with a minimum pool […]

Overview The purpose of the consultations is to obtain market views on issues relating to the design and operation of government debt programs over 2001—02, with a focus on the Treasury bill program. The following provides a brief description of the issues to be covered: Context The objectives of debt strategy are to provide stable, […]

On balance, firms expect sales growth to pick up over the next 12 months, and plan to increase investment spending and employment. Their investment plans are increasingly being targeted at expansion and at improving efficiency to promote future growth.

Business sentiment has deteriorated markedly since the autumn survey, as the effects of the international financial crisis and the weak global economy intensified and spread to domestic demand. Almost all indicators are at their lowest level since the survey began in 1997.

Overall, firms remain positive about the outlook, with the results of the winter survey showing little change from those of the autumn survey. Nonetheless, firms reported more uncertainty in light of recent developments, most notably the volatility in the value of the Canadian dollar.

All indicators of business activity (future sales, expected employment, and investment intentions) have increased relative to the previous survey.

Helliwell traces the changes that have occurred at the Bank of Canada since the early 1960s, when he first began a long and extensive relationship with the institution and its staff. He begins with his work on the Royal Commission on Banking and Finance (the Porter Commission) and continues over the next 40 years, giving particular focus to the Bank's analytic and research activities. Although he is careful to note the benefits of alternative analytical and information-gathering techniques, such as the extensive mail and direct interview survey that he and his colleagues conducted as part of the Royal Commission, Helliwell devotes most of his attention to the Bank's econometric modelling efforts, starting with RDX1 and RDX2 in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He cites some of the internal, as well as external, obstacles that had to be overcome as the Bank's modelling efforts advanced, and how shifting trends in the economics profession have sometimes posed a challenge. Helliwell concludes that these developments helped the Bank to come of age and take its place in the front ranks of the world's evidence-based policy-research institutions.

Timothy Hodgson, Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs Canada, has been appointed Special Adviser to the Governor. During a period when financial regulation and market infrastructure are evolving rapidly, the Bank of Canada will benefit from Mr. Hodgson’s profound and extensive experience in investment banking and markets.