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We use relative value to measure limits to arbitrage in fixed-income markets. Relative value captures apparent deviations from no-arbitrage relationships. It is simple, intuitive and can be computed model-free for any bond.

Consider the monetary model of Lagos and Wright (JPE 2005) but with general preferences and general production. I show that preferences satisfying UXXUHH – (UXH)2 = 0 is a sufficient condition for the existence and uniqueness of monetary equilibrium with degenerate money distribution.

The author investigates the influence of bank capital on economic activity, using a macroeconomic model that incorporates an explicit role for financial intermediation. The analysis focuses on the role of a “bank-capital channel” in propagating and amplifying monetary policy actions and other shocks. The question of whether weaker bank balance sheets make the economy more vulnerable to adverse shocks is examined, together with the impact of initiatives, such as countercyclical capital buffers, on the transmission of monetary policy and other shocks to the real economy.

This paper examines the effects of time-varying volatility on welfare. I construct a tractable endogenous growth model with recursive preferences, stochastic volatility, and capital adjustment costs.

When it comes to understanding the influence of labour costs on inflation, average wage growth is a misleading indicator because it is affected by composition effects. We propose an alternative measure that corrects for these effects by using microdata from the Labour Force Survey. Our new measure has many desirable properties, including reduced volatility and a better relationship with labour market fundamentals.

In recent years, significant efforts have been made to attract more women into academia and to support their careers, with the goal of increasing their representation.

The Department of Finance and the Bank of Canada, as its fiscal agent, work closely with financial market participants in the management of the federal government's debt program. From the government's perspective, maintaining a liquid well-functioning market in Government of Canada securities is a key factor in ensuring that debt-service costs are minimized. It is […]

The difference between actual borrowings and borrowing limits alone generates information asymmetry in the credit card market.

Financing costs are important for both firms and the economy, affecting investment decisions and, ultimately, economic growth. Despite concern among policy-makers that the cost of equity financing may be higher in Canada than in the United States, empirical evidence supporting this view is mixed. Yet Canadian firms may not undertake as many projects that could potentially enhance growth if the cost of equity financing in Canada is relatively high. The article summarizes research by Jonathan Witmer and Lorie Zorn on the influences on the cost of equity in Canada and the United States, using an updated methodology that controls for firm characteristics and aggregate-level factors. In their sample, the cost of equity was 30–50 basis points higher in Canada over 1988 to 2006 but appears to have dropped in the post-1997 period. The results have policy implications related to such factors as firm size, disclosure, and securities regulation and enforcement.

This paper shows that survey expectations can be used to uncover how households subjectively think about inflation and unemployment dynamics jointly. The commonly documented "stagflation view", namely the households' tendency to associate inflation with a worse labor market, implies amplified impacts of supply shocks and dampened ones of demand shocks.