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We use a small open economy model with overlapping generations to evaluate secular dynamics of the neutral rate in Canada from 1980 to 2018. We find that changes in both foreign and domestic factors resulted in a protracted decline in the neutral rate.

This paper uncovers trends in payment timing in Canada’s Large Value Transfer System (LVTS) from 2003 to 2011. Descriptive analysis shows that LVTS payment activity has not been peaking in the late afternoon since 2008, and the improvement was most significant in 2009.

Despite a vast empirical literature that assesses the impact of financial integration on the economy, evidence of substantial welfare gains from consumption risk sharing remains elusive. While maintaining the usual cross-country perspective of the literature, this paper explicitly accounts for household heterogeneity and thus relaxes three restrictive assumptions that have featured prominently in the past.

We explore the drivers of the surge in inflation in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. This work is part of a joint effort by 11 central banks using the model developed by Bernanke and Blanchard (2023) to identify similarities and differences across economies.

Although the concept of monetary policy lag has historical roots deep in the monetary economics literature, relatively little attention has been paid to the idea. In this paper, we build on Svensson's (1997) inflation targeting framework by explicitly taking into account the lagged effect of monetary policy and characterize the optimal monetary policy reaction function both in the absence and in the presence of the zero lower bound on the nominal interest rate.

This paper studies the impact of market timing on Canadian firms' capital structure and makes a comparison with U.S. firms.

The financial system makes an important contribution to the welfare of all Canadians. The ability of households and firms to confidently hold and transfer financial assets is one of the fundamental building blocks of the Canadian economy.

Specifications of the Federal Reserve target rate that have more realistic features mitigate in-sample over-fitting and are favored in the data.

This article examines four indicators of balance-sheet risks—leverage, capital, asset liquidity and funding—among different types of financial institutions in Canada over the past three decades. It also discusses relevant developments in the banking sector that could have contributed to the observed dynamics. The authors find that the various risk indicators decreased during the period for most of the non-Big Six financial institutions, but remained relatively unchanged for the Big Six banks. In addition, the balance-sheet risk indicators became more heterogeneous across financial institutions. The observed overall decline and increased heterogeneity follow certain regulatory changes, such as the introduction of the liquidity guidelines on funding in 1995 and the implementation of bank-specific leverage requirements in 2000. Given that these regulations required more balance-sheet risk management, they have likely contributed to the increased resilience of the banking sector.

How much attention do firms pay to macroeconomic news? Through a novel text-based measure, two facts emerge. First, attention is polarized. Most firms either never or always pay attention to economic conditions. Second, it is countercyclical. During recessions, more firms pay attention, and firms pay greater attention to macroeconomic news.