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Despite COVID-19 challenges, bold policy measures in Canada have helped businesses manage cash flow pressures and kept insolvency filings low. But the impact of the pandemic has been uneven, and the financial health of some firms may further deteriorate over the next year.

The Bitcoin Omnibus Survey is an important tool for monitoring Canadians’ awareness and ownership of bitcoin and other cryptoassets over time. In this paper, we present data highlights from the 2023 survey.

Futurists have been speculating about the prospects for a cashless society for many years, and such predictions became more frequent following the introduction of "smart" cards - cards containing a computer chip - in the mid-1970s.

Until recently, there have been few efforts to systematically measure and aggregate the nominal value of the different types of sovereign government debt in default. To help fill this gap, the Bank of Canada’s Credit Rating Assessment Group (CRAG) has developed a comprehensive database of sovereign defaults posted on the Bank of Canada’s website that now is updated in partnership with the Bank of England.

We examine local labor markets in the United States and Canada from 1990 to 2011 using comparable household and business data. Wage levels and inequality rise with city population in both countries, albeit less in Canada.

We study the labour market and welfare effects of expanding unemployment insurance benefits and introducing payroll subsidies during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that both policies are complementary and are beneficial to different types of workers. Payroll subsidies preserve the employment of workers in highly productive jobs, while unemployment insurance replaces lost income for workers who experience inevitable job loss.

Japanese economic activity has been stagnant since the collapse of the speculative asset-price bubble in 1990, despite highly expansionary monetary policy which has brought interest rates down to record low levels. Although several reasons have been put forward to explain the sustained weakness of the Japanese economy, none is more intriguing from the viewpoint of a central bank than the possibility that monetary policy had been largely ineffective because the Japanese economy entered a Keynesian "liquidity trap."

The Canadian financial industry continues to experience significant changes. This report provides an update on recent developments and re-examines a number of issues facing financial service providers that were identified in Technical Report No. 82.

While quantitative easing (QE) in the United States likely increased capital flows to emerging-market economies (EMEs), putting upward pressure on asset prices and exchange rates, diverging fundamentals between advanced economies and EMEs were also important drivers. Evidence suggests that the benefits of QE to EMEs, in higher global demand and increased confidence, appear to outweigh the costs. When advanced economies begin to normalize monetary policy, the best defence for EMEs against any potential instability is likely to be further strengthening of their macroeconomic and financial policy frameworks.

In 1996 inflation remained within the Bank’s target range but was subject to downward pressure. The low rate of inflation contributed to a major easing in monetary conditions, and interest rates reached their lowest level in 30 years.