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This issue features a summary of the Bank’s annual conference, which this year dealt with financial globalization, and three articles that present research by Bank staff on Canada’s mortgage market, the role of adverse selection in financial crises, and payment networks.

Constrained efficient allocation (CE) is characterized in a model of adverse selection and directed search (Guerrieri, Shimer, and Wright (2010)). CE is defined to be the allocation that maximizes welfare, the ex-ante utility of all agents, subject to the frictions of the environment.

The premise that exchange rate pass-through has declined is critically reassessed; intensity in the negative feedback process between financial sector developments and the real economy during the recent global crisis is examined; update on past decade’s changing trends in debt issuance in Canada relative to those in other capital markets.

This issue focuses on the upcoming renewal of Canada’s inflation-control target. Bank researchers discuss the estimate of the lower bound to policy interest rates in Canada. They also discuss downward nominal wage rigidity and whether its presence warrants considering a higher inflation target. The third article highlights the experience some international central banks have had with unconventional monetary policies. The final article describes monetary policy frameworks in 10 advanced economies.