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When countries are hit by supply shocks, central banks often face the dilemma of either looking through such shocks or reacting to them to ensure that inflation expectations remain anchored. In this paper, we propose a tractable framework to capture this dilemma and then explore optimal policy under a range of assumptions about how expectations are formed.

Do bond risk premiums influence the effects of debt maturity operations? Using a model with realistic bond risk premiums, we show that maturity operations have sizable effects on expected inflation and output when the central bank passively responds to inflation and the fiscal authority weakly responds to the debt level.

In the year and a half leading up to mid-2003, both employment and labour force participation increased at an unusually rapid pace compared to domestic economic activity. Gains in employment were unusually large, relative to output growth, compared to gains in total hours worked. This is explained by a faster rate of increase in the participation rate of the 55 and older age group, many of whom opted for part-time employment. This shift in the composition of employment contributed to a reduction in the length of the average workweek in 2002. As a result, labour input progressed at a rate that was markedly slower than for employment and more in line with its historical relationship to output growth. The authors anticipate that the 55 and older age group will continue to participate strongly in the labour force, but that as the economy rebounds and uncertainty diminishes, the cyclical component in the growth of part-time work should diminish and that of full-time employment increase. Employment growth should moderate in relation to output growth and there may be a cyclical rebound in labour productivity as total hours worked increases during the initial recovery in output growth.

We examine local labor markets in the United States and Canada from 1990 to 2011 using comparable household and business data. Wage levels and inequality rise with city population in both countries, albeit less in Canada.

In response to the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, policy-makers around the globe are providing unprecedented stimulus to support economic recovery and are pursuing a radical set of reforms to build a more resilient financial system.

Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney discusses the “cornerstones of Canada’s prosperity.”

Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn A. Wilkins discusses how automation could affect productivity and the Bank’s monetary policy.

The Bank of Canada has a mandate to “promote the economic and financial welfare of Canada,” primarily through the conduct of monetary policy and promotion of a safe, sound and efficient financial system. Understanding the macroeconomic and financial system impacts of climate change and the transition to a low-carbon economy is therefore a priority for the Bank.

Implications for signal extraction from specifying unobserved components (UC) models with correlated or orthogonal innovations have been well investigated. In contrast, the forecasting implications of specifying UC models with different state correlation structures are less well understood.

We study how price variation within a store changes with inflation, and whether households exploit these changes to reduce the burden of inflation. We find that price changes from discounts mitigated the inflation burden while cheapflation exacerbated it.