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Recent events in financial markets have underlined the importance of analyzing the link between the financial health of banks and real economic activity. This paper contributes to this analysis by constructing a dynamic general equilibrium model in which the balance sheet of banks affects the propagation of shocks.

Cyclical contractions are often referred to as inventory cycles, in part because movements in inventories can amplify cyclical fluctuations in output. An unanticipated slowing in demand generally leads to an unintended buildup of inventories: only with a lag do firms adjust production and their actual holding of inventories relative to the desired level.

The authors investigate whether the aggregation of region-specific forecasts improves upon the direct forecasting of Canadian GDP growth.

Data show that income inequality in Canada increased substantially during the 1980s and first half of the 1990s but has been relatively stable over the past 25 years. This increase was felt mainly by low-income earners and younger people, while older people benefited from higher retirement income.

This paper studies the steady-state costs of inflation in a general-equilibrium model with real per capita output growth and staggered nominal price and wage contracts.

Central banks play a pivotal role in well-functioning payments systems by providing liquidity via collateralized lending. This article discusses the role of collateral and haircut policy in central bank lending, as well as the distinguishing features of the central bank’s policy relative to private sector practices. It presents a model that explicitly incorporates the unique role of central banks in the payments system and argues that central banks must consider how their haircut policies affect the relative price and liquidity of assets, the market’s asset allocation, and the likelihood of participants to default. Furthermore, under extraordinary circumstances, there is a rationale for the central bank to temporarily reduce haircuts or broaden the list of eligible collateral to mitigate the shortage of liquidity in the market.

Deposit insurance protects depositors from failing banks, thus making insured deposits risk-free. When a deposit insurance limit is increased, some deposits that previously were uninsured become insured, thereby increasing the share of risk-free assets in households’ portfolios. This increase cannot simply be undone by households, because to invest in uninsured deposits, a household must first invest in insured deposits up to the limit. This basic insight is the starting point of the analysis in this paper.

We present a two-stage model of mobile phone and mobile payment usage that controls for selectivity. This reveals unobserved factors that work against having a mobile phone and toward mobile paying. Therefore, people who are unable to acquire or choose not to own a mobile device might have unmet payment needs.

This paper proposes a novel regression-based approach to the estimation of Gaussian dynamic term structure models that avoids numerical optimization.

This report highlights the possible implications of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for Canada and Mexico. While it is still early, the initial evidence indicates that these treaties are contributing to a continental process of industrial restructuring that will contribute to higher living standards over time. The […]