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Policy-makers around the world met the intensification of the global financial crisis at the end of 2008 with a forceful response aimed at restoring confidence in the global financial system, promoting the flow of credit, and supporting economic activity.

FSR Highlights - June 2009

Erratum: Legends for Chart 13 on page 15 of the June 2009 issue should read: Argentina (right scale), Mexico (left scale). See revised chart.

In this issue, Bank researchers discuss the muted recovery from the 2007–09 financial crisis and possible causes. There are also discussions about the Bank’s new Canadian survey of household expectations, measuring both durable goods and housing prices in the CPI and how regulatory changes may affect monetary policy operating frameworks. In the final article, improvements to the management of Canada’s foreign exchange reserves are introduced.

Mark Carney, Senior Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Finance, Speech to the Toronto Society of Financial Analysts

The Annual Report provides an account of the Bank’s management, activities and achievements in 2015; it includes the financial statements and a message from Governor Stephen S. Poloz.

By All Accounts is the fifth and final book in the Bank's souvenir history series. This volume presents a portrait of the Bank from the perspective of outside observers, showing how Canadians have perceived the performance of their central bank over the decades through the eyes of those who monitor its work on the public's behalf.

This paper provides an overview of cryptoasset exchanges. We contrast their design with exchanges in traditional financial markets and discuss emerging regulatory trends and innovations aimed at solving the problems cryptoasset exchanges face.

Despite the efficiency gains that accompany automation, most large futures exchanges have been reluctant to move away from the traditional trading floor, citing early evidence that open outcry exchanges were more liquid than electronic exchanges. More recent studies, however, suggest that electronic trading is superior to open outcry in many respects, including liquidity. In this article, the author compares the two trading systems. Although many exchanges are shifting towards electronic trading, there are still several obstacles to this transition. But as technology rapidly reduces the cost of automation and increases the demand for global 24-hour trading, a worldwide transition to electronic order-matching will likely be the next important milestone for futures exchanges. Less-automated exchanges (including the Canadian futures exchanges) will undoubtedly continue to study and promote automation in order to keep pace with technological innovations.

For over three decades, measured productivity growth in the commercial service sector has consistently lagged behind that of the goods-producing sector. At the same time, the service sector has greatly expanded its share of output and employment. Some commentators have suggested that this trend will reduce growth in total economy-wide productivity. In this article, the author reviews recent trends in productivity growth in services and the main factors affecting it. She concludes that services will likely contribute to increases in future productivity growth. There is a great diversity of experience within the service sector. While productivity is falling in some industries, factors such as technological change, deregulation, and increased competition have helped to increase it in others. Moreover, much of the growth in commercial service output is occurring in those industries with relatively high productivity growth. Difficulties in measuring output for some service activities may also be resulting in underestimation of output and productivity growth. To the extent that services are used as intermediate inputs in the production of goods, underestimating productivity growth in the service industry would cause an offsetting overestimation of productivity growth in goods-producing industries.

We discuss the payment habits of Canadians both in the current payment environment and in a hypothetical cashless environment.