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Lectures delivered by Gordon G. Thiessen, Governor of the Bank of Canada 1994 to 2001

In 2023, the share of Canadian banks’ foreign assets and liabilities amounted to around 50%. While Canadian banks engage domestically mostly with households and non-financial corporations, their most common counterparties abroad are non-bank financial institutions.

The Federal Reserve’s path for withdrawal of monetary stimulus and eventually increasing interest rates could have substantial repercussions for capital flows to emerging-market economies (EMEs).

This article describes experimental economics, in general, and new developments in experimental macroeconomics, in particular. The approach has a clear niche in providing evidence on economic phenomena that cannot be observed directly or that are difficult to measure. Experimental work conducted by Bank of Canada economists has shed light on a number of issues important to monetary policy, such as the relative efficacy between price-level and inflation targeting, and the nature of inflation expectations formation.

This paper assesses the merits of countercyclical bank balance sheet regulation for the stabilization of financial and economic cycles and examines its interaction with monetary policy.

Growth in the Canadian economy has been essentially in line with the expectations set out in the Bank’s January Monetary Policy Report Update.

Real GDP in Canada is expected to grow by 2.0 per cent in 2018, 2.2 per cent in 2019 and 1.9 per cent in 2020.

Using data from a 2004 survey of the Canadian public, the authors study the role of convenience and risk in consumers' use of cash relative to debit and credit cards. The authors find that consumers who perceive debit cards and credit cards to be more convenient and less risky than cash use them more frequently.

Many empirical studies have examined the cyclical nature of the markup ratio. Until recently, few have attempted to ascertain the changes in the markup over a longer time horizon.

The Bank of Canada's 2004 research conference examined the real and financial linkages between the Canadian economy and the economies in the rest of the world. Although Canada has profited enormously from its openness to international trade in goods, services, and financial assets, many of the most significant shocks to the Canadian economy in recent years have come from abroad. For these reasons, understanding the extent and nature of the external linkages, their implications for the Canadian economy, and the process by which the Canadian economy adjusts to external shocks is of critical importance both for monetary policy and for monitoring the financial system. This article describes the purpose of the conference—to deepen economists' understanding of these important issues—and provides highlights of the papers presented in each of the five sessions, as well as summaries of the keynote lecture and the discussion of the policy panel.