Search

A recent paper has suggested there might be a trade-off between inflation and unemployment at low inflation rates and this has led some economists to recommend that Canada increase its inflation rate.

Following the recent financial crisis, major central banks have introduced several types of unconventional monetary policy measures, including liquidity and credit facilities, asset purchases and forward guidance. To date, these measures appear to have been successful. They restored market functioning, facilitated the transmission of monetary policy and supported economic activity. They have potential costs, however, including challenges related to the greatly expanded balance sheets of central banks and the eventual exit from these measures, as well as the vulnerabilities that can arise from prolonged monetary accommodation.

This paper studies capital structure adjustment mechanisms of firms that experience substantial changes in leverage.

Production efficiency and financial stability do not necessarily go hand in hand. With heterogeneity in banks’ abilities to screen borrowers, the market for loans becomes segmented and a self-competition mechanism arises. When heterogeneity increases, the intensive and extensive margins have opposite effects.

The three articles in this issue provide an overview of the monetary policy decision-making process at the Bank of Canada, a discussion of Bank research on the assessment of vulnerabilities in the financial system and a description of recent fragmentation in Canadian equity markets.

The existence of downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) has often been used to justify a positive inflation target. It is traditionally assumed that positive inflation could “grease the wheels” of the labour market by putting downward pressure on real wages, easing labour market adjustments during a recession.

This paper presents a general equilibrium model with endogenous collateral constraints to study the relationship between financial development and business cycle fluctuations in a cross-section of economies with different sizes of their financial sector.

Beginning in 1864, in the United States notes of national banks were the predominant medium of exchange. Each national bank issued its own notes. E-money shares many of the characteristics of these bank notes.

Many empirical studies have examined the cyclical nature of the markup ratio. Until recently, few have attempted to ascertain the changes in the markup over a longer time horizon.