What Drives Exchange Rates? New Evidence from a Panel of U.S. Dollar Bilateral Exchange Rates Staff Working Paper 2010-5 Jean-Philippe Cayen, Donald Coletti, René Lalonde, Philipp Maier We use a novel approach to identify economic developments that drive exchange rates in the long run. Using a panel of six quarterly U.S. bilateral real exchange rates – Australia, Canada, the euro, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom – over the 1980-2007 period, a dynamic factor model points to two common factors. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Exchange rates JEL Code(s): J, J3, J31
Statistical Confidence Intervals for the Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey Staff Discussion Paper 2010-7 Daniel de Munnik While a number of central banks publish their own business conditions indicators that rely on non-random sampling, knowledge about their statistical accuracy has been limited. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Central bank research, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): C, C4, C46, C8, C81
Prospects for Global Current Account Rebalancing Staff Discussion Paper 2010-4 Kimberly Beaton, Carlos De Resende, René Lalonde, Stephen Snudden The authors use the Bank of Canada's version of the Global Economy Model, a multi-country, multi-sector dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model with an active banking system (the BoC-GEM-FIN), to study the evolution of global current account balances following the recent global financial crisis. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Balance of payments and components, Business fluctuations and cycles, International topics, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, F, F0, F01, F3, F32
August 14, 1997 The fiscal impact of privatization in Canada Bank of Canada Review - Summer 1997 Mylène Levac, Philip Wooldridge Privatization—the transfer of activities from the public to the private sector—gained international prominence in the 1980s because of the need to reduce budget deficits and growing concerns about the efficiency of state-owned enterprises and government bureaucracies. This article examines privatization in Canada and its effect on governments' fiscal positions. Privatization has generally been less rapid and extensive in Canada than elsewhere, partly because of the comparatively moderate size of our public sector. Nevertheless, federal, provincial, and municipal governments have increasingly reduced their direct involvement in the Canadian economy by selling Crown corporations, contracting with private firms to deliver public services, and transferring the development of public infrastructure projects to the private sector. The fiscal impact of privatizing Crown corporations varies with such factors as the profitability of the enterprise, the size of the government's initial investment, and past write-downs. In general, when privatizations are part of a broader effort to improve public finances, they can contribute to fiscal consolidation by reducing budgetary requirements and debt levels. When services and infrastructure projects are privatized, it is expected that more efficient private sector management will reduce government expenditures. For example, a private consortium may be better able to manage the financial risks involved in building an infrastructure facility, such as cost overruns or the withdrawal of contractors, than the public sector. The key to raising efficiency and lowering costs, however, is competition, not privatization per se. Therefore, the cost savings arising from the privatization of services or public works depend crucially on the terms of the contract. Overall, when structured to improve economic efficiency, privatization is likely to enhance the economy's performance, thereby producing long-term economic and budgetary gains. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Fiscal policy
December 14, 2009 Financial System Review - December 2009 Conditions in the international financial system have improved considerably since June in response to the forceful actions taken by policy-makers around the world.FSR Highlights - December 2009 Content Type(s): Publications, Financial Stability Report
May 14, 1997 The changing business activities of banks in Canada Bank of Canada Review - Spring 1997 Jim Armstrong Over the last 30 years, the business mix of banks in Canada has changed significantly. Progress in information-processing technology, legislative changes, and market forces have combined to blur the traditional distinctions between banks and other financial institutions and have allowed banks to offer a much wider range of products and services. In this article, the author reviews the expansion of bank lending to households over this period and their recent movement into personal wealth management. While these trends were facilitated by revisions to legislation, they also reflected the changing needs of the "baby boom" generation, first as home-buyers and, more recently, as middle-aged investors. On the commercial and corporate side, banks reacted to the rapid expansion of securities markets (and to the reduced demand for intermediation by both lenders/depositors and borrowers) by moving into investment banking, after legislative changes opened this business to them in the late 1980s. They also used their expertise in credit assessment and risk management to provide credit guarantees and to act as counterparties and intermediaries in derivatives markets. Notable in this broadening of bank activities has been their more recent entry into the trust, mutual fund, and retail brokerage business. The banks have also made preliminary forays into insurance. The expansion of off-balance-sheet activities has made fee income an increasingly important part of bank earnings. The article also looks at the emerging tools and techniques that will most likely transform the structure of banking in the future. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial institutions
May 14, 1997 Bank of Canada Review - Spring 1997 Cover page Japanese oban Photography by James Zagon. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review
November 11, 2008 The Role of Dealers in Providing Interday Liquidity in the Canadian-Dollar Market Bank of Canada Review - Winter 2008-2009 Chris D'Souza Access to information about the future direction of the exchange rate can be extremely valuable in the foreign exchange market. Evidence presented in this article suggests that Canadian dealers are more likely to provide interday liquidity to foreign, rather than Canadian, financial customers, since foreign financial flows can be more informative about future movements in the exchange rate. The author reveals a statistical relationship between the supply of liquidity provided by non-financial firms and that provided by dealing institutions across time, and across markets, and suggests that the relationship between the positions of commercial clients and market-makers, and the role played by dealers in interday liquidity provision, has been understated in the market microstructure literature. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Exchange rates, Financial institutions, Financial markets, Market structure and pricing
November 11, 2008 The Market Impact of Forward-Looking Policy Statements: Transparency vs. Predictability Bank of Canada Review - Winter 2008-2009 Christine Fay, Toni Gravelle Central banks continuously strive to improve how they communicate to financial markets and the public in order to increase transparency. For this reason, many central banks have begun to include guidance on the policy rate in the form of forward-looking statements in their communications. This article examines the debate over the usefulness of providing such statements from both theoretical and empirical standpoints. The evidence presented here suggests that the use of forward-looking statements in Bank of Canada communications has made the Bank more predictable, but not necessarily more transparent. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Central bank research, Interest rates, Monetary policy transmission
April 7, 2010 Banking on a Better System: Lessons from Canada Presentation John Murray American University Washington, D.C. Content Type(s): Press, Speeches and appearances, Presentations