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We propose a functional principal components method that accounts for stratified random sample weighting and time dependence in the observations to understand the evolution of distributions of monthly micro-level consumer prices for the United Kingdom (UK).

Over this period, there has been a fundamental transformation in the way monetary policy is conducted in Canada and in most other industrial countries. While globalization and technological change have played an important role in this area, as in so many others, they have not, to my mind, been the principal driving force behind this transformation. Far more important has been the interaction of experience and economic theory.

This paper studies the use of information for incentives and risk sharing in agency problems. When the principal is risk neutral or the outcome is contractible, risk sharing is unnecessary or completely taken care of by a contract on the outcome.

We study how the transmission of monetary policy innovations is affected by the endogenous response of the central bank to macroeconomic aggregates in a two-agent New Keynesian model. We focus on how the stance of monetary policy and the fraction of savers in the economy affect transmission.

Crowdfunding may enable unique products to reach the consumer market. I model a crowdfunding technology that publicly screens consumer demand early in the production process. In this model, entrepreneurs like crowdfunding for risky projects where demand is uncertain, but not for large, safe projects or for projects where production costs are uncertain.

Following theory, we check that funding risk connects illiquidity, volatility and returns in the cross-section of stocks. We show that the illiquidity and volatility of stocks increase with funding shocks, while contemporaneous returns decrease with funding shocks.

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.

Firms that grow rapidly have the potential to usher in new innovations, products or processes (Kogan et al. 2017), become superstar firms (Haltiwanger et al. 2013) and impact the aggregate labour share (Autor et al. 2020; De Loecker et al. 2020). We explore the use of supervised machine learning techniques to identify a population of nascent high-growth firms using Canadian administrative firm-level data.

The use of bank notes in Canada for payments has declined consistently for some time, and similar trends are evident in other countries. This has led some observers to predict a cashless society in the future.

Indeed, the global financial crisis of the past two years has presented unique, stressful challenges that have forced us all to assess what has worked well and what needs to change. Today, I would like to review some of the critical thinking around these issues, primarily from the perspective of our work at the Bank of Canada.