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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.

Using Canadian matched employer-employee data, we show that working hours of different workers are gross complements in production rather than perfect substitutes, as is typically assumed by macroeconomic models of production.

How much capital do banks need as a buffer to absorb severe shocks? By using historical stock market data, market-based stress tests help estimate the magnitude of capital buffers necessary to absorb severe but plausible shocks.

We estimate a New Keynesian general-equilibrium open economy model to examine how changes in oil prices affect the macroeconomy. Our model allows oil price changes to be transmitted through temporary demand and supply channels (affecting the output gap), as well as through persistent supply side effects (affecting trend growth).

We propose an open-economy New Keynesian model with financial integration that allows financial intermediaries to hold foreign long-term bonds. We study the implications of financial integration on monetary policy transmission. Among various aspects of financial integration, the bond duration plays a major role. These results hold for conventional and unconventional monetary policies.

Many important economic variables are subject to revision. This article explains how, when, and why such revisions occur; how revisions to Canadian gross domestic product (GDP) compare with GDP revisions in some other countries; which GDP components are subject to the largest revisions; and how data revisions can affect policy decisions. The author finds that revisions to Canadian GDP tend to be smaller, on average, than those of some other countries, and that among the GDP components, exports and imports are most heavily revised.

This article summarizes the proceedings of an international research conference hosted by the Bank of Canada in November 2000. The conference marked the fiftieth anniversary of Canada's adoption of a flexible exchange rate, and its title recognizes the seminal contribution of Professor Milton Friedman's article "The Case for Flexible Exchange Rates." His keynote address to the conference is also summarized in the article. The conference papers re-examine many of the arguments raised by Friedman using recent developments in economic theory and econometric techniques. They investigate the experience of a wide range of industrialized and emerging-market economies. The main findings are that a strong case can be made for flexible exchange rates in economies that are large commodity exporters and that have credible low-inflation monetary policies and relatively well-developed financial systems.

This issue features four articles that present research and analysis by Bank staff. The first focuses on reforming the international monetary system; the second on the role of collateral and haircut policy in central bank lending; and the third on the extraction of information from the Business Outlook Survey using principal-component analysis. The fourth reviews studies that model the counterfeiting of bank notes.

The Basel capital framework plays an important role in risk management by linking a bank's minimum capital requirements to the riskiness of its assets. Nevertheless, the risk estimates underlying these calculations may be imperfect, and it appears that a cyclical bias in measures of risk-adjusted capital contributed to procyclical increases in global leverage prior to the recent financial crisis.