Macroeconomic Disasters and Consumption Smoothing: International Evidence from Historical Data Staff Working Paper 2023-4 Lorenzo Pozzi, Barbara Sadaba Does consumption smoothing fundamentally decrease during macroeconomic disasters? This paper uses a large historical dataset (1870–2016) for 16 industrial economies to show that during macroeconomic disasters (e.g., wars, pandemics, depressions) aggregate consumption and income are significantly less decoupled than during normal times. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C2, C23, E, E2, E21
August 13, 1999 Recent Initiatives in the Canadian Market for Government of Canada Securities Bank of Canada Review - Summer 1999 Nancy Harvey The initiatives reviewed by the author were undertaken to ensure a liquid and well-functioning market for Government of Canada securities in light of the significant shift in the government's financial position. They include changes made in 1998 by the Bank of Canada and the government to the rules governing auctions and to the Bank's surveillance of the auction process, changes to the treasury bill and bond programs, and implementation of a pilot buyback program for Government of Canada marketable bonds. In addition, the Investment Dealers Association of Canada adopted a code of conduct for the secondary market. These initiatives were well received by the market and appear to have had a positive impact. The Bank and the government are, however, continuing their search for ways to maintain and enhance the efficiency of this market. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial markets
The Welfare Cost of Inflation Revisited: The Role of Financial Innovation and Household Heterogeneity Staff Working Paper 2018-40 Shutao Cao, Césaire Meh, José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, Yaz Terajima We document that, across households, the money consumption ratio increases with age and decreases with consumption, and that there has been a large increase in the money consumption ratio during the recent era of very low interest rates. We construct an overlapping generations (OLG) model of money holdings for transaction purposes subject to age (older households use more money), cohort (younger generations are exposed to better transaction technology), and time effects (nominal interest rates affect money holdings). Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation: costs and benefits JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E4, E41
August 15, 2013 Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2013 This special issue discusses tools used at Bank of Canada to conduct current analysis - the collection and analysis of a broad spectrum of information to form a view of current economic activity. This analysis is a key input into the Bank’s monetary policy decision-making process. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review
August 25, 2015 The Long-Term Evolution of House Prices: An International Perspective Remarks Lawrence L. Schembri Canadian Association for Business Economics Kingston, Ontario Deputy Governor Lawrence Schembri discusses the international evidence of underlying determinants of long-term movements in house prices. Content Type(s): Press, Speeches and appearances, Remarks Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Housing, International topics, Sectoral balance sheet
September 15, 2008 The Bank of Canada's Senior Loan Officer Survey Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2008 Umar Faruqui, Paul Gilbert, Wendy Kei The Bank of Canada maintains regular contact with financial institutions as part of the information-gathering process that feeds into the larger set of information used to arrive at its monetary policy decision. Since 1999, the Bank has been conducting a quarterly survey of the business-lending practices of major Canadian financial institutions. Analysis of the information collected shows that it is correlated with future growth in both credit and business investment. This article focuses on how the survey is conducted and describes the construction of the summary statistics, highlighting the key statistical relationships in the historical survey data. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial institutions, Monetary and financial indicators, Recent economic and financial developments
Global Trade Flows: Revisiting the Exchange Rate Elasticities Staff Working Paper 2017-41 Matthieu Bussière, Guillaume Gaulier, Walter Steingress This paper contributes to the debate on the magnitude of exchange rate elasticities by providing a set of price and quantity elasticities for 51 advanced and emerging-market economies. Specifically, for each of these countries we report the elasticity of trade prices and trade quantities on both the export and on the import sides, as well as the reaction of the trade balance. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Inflation and prices, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C51, F, F1, F14, F3, F31, F33, F4, F41
Estimating the Slope of the Demand Function at Auctions for Government of Canada Bonds Staff Discussion Paper 2023-12 Bo Young Chang We use bid data from Government of Canada bond auctions between 1999 and 2021 to gauge the yield sensitivity of these bonds to the issuance amount. Our new metric estimates the demand function of the bidders at each auction and offers insights into the relationship between supply and yield of government bonds. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Debt management, Interest rates JEL Code(s): D, D4, D44, G, G1, G12
Are Product Spreads Useful for Forecasting? An Empirical Evaluation of the Verleger Hypothesis Staff Working Paper 2013-25 Christiane Baumeister, Lutz Kilian, Xiaoqing Zhou Notwithstanding a resurgence in research on out-of-sample forecasts of the price of oil in recent years, there is one important approach to forecasting the real price of oil which has not been studied systematically to date. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, G, G1, G15, Q, Q4, Q43
Frictional Capital Reallocation I: Ex Ante Heterogeneity Staff Working Paper 2019-4 Randall Wright, Sylvia Xiaolin Xiao, Yu Zhu This paper studies dynamic general equilibrium models where firms trade capital in frictional markets. Gains from trade arise due to ex ante heterogeneity: some firms are better at investment, so they build capital in the primary market; others acquire it in the secondary market. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E2, E22, E4, E44