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Standard monetary models adopt an infinite horizon with discounting. Testing these models in the lab requires implementing this horizon within a limited time frame. We compare three approaches to such an implementation and discuss their relative advantages.

Credit derivatives are a useful tool for lenders who want to reduce their exposure to a particular borrower but are unwilling to sell their claims on that borrower. Without actually transferring ownership of the underlying assets, these contracts transfer risk from one counterparty to another. Commercial banks are the major participants in this growing market, using these transactions to diversify their portfolios of loans and other risky assets. The authors examine the size and workings of this relatively new market and discuss the potential of these transactions for distorting existing incentives for risk management and risk monitoring.

While climate change was largely tackled by government policies in the past, central banks are increasingly grappling with the risks climate change poses. They are evaluating their operational policies to reflect these risks and the transition to a net-zero economy. This paper explores the trade-offs and considerations central banks face.

This note presents a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model of the global oil market. The model identifies four types of shocks with different economic interpretations: oil supply shocks, oil-market-specific demand shocks, storage demand shocks and shocks to global economic growth.

This report reviews the Bank of Canada's oversight activities during 2013 and priorities for 2014 pursuant to the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act (PCSA). This annual report is intended to provide transparency and accountability regarding the Bank's activities in this area.

In many countries, the cost of housing has greatly outpaced income growth, leading to a housing affordability crisis. Leveraging Canadian loan-level data and quasi-experimental variation in payment-to-income constraints, we document an increasing reliance of first-time homebuyers on financial help from their parents, through mortgage co-signing. We show that parental support can effectively relax borrowing constraints—potentially to riskier borrowers.

We outline possible system architectures for an online retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) and identify one well-suited for basic payments. We analyze OpenCBDC 2PC, a representative system, finding such designs to be feasible, although some areas require further investigation. Our framing highlights other promising architectures for a retail CBDC.

We present core findings from the 2024 Methods-of-Payment Survey, highlighting results from both the survey questionnaire and three-day shopping diary. Although cash holdings have increased in nominal terms, we find that cash usage remains unchanged since 2020. Mobile and other alternative payment methods continue to grow in importance.

In this article, the authors explain the methodology used to construct real exchange rate (RER) indexes. They also compare and assess various Canadian RER indexes from both an empirical and conceptual standpoint. The authors conclude that both theory and empirical evidence suggest that the best RER indexes are those based on unit labour costs. They note, however, that, for practical reasons, policy-makers should also consider RER indexes based on prices when formulating monetary policy.

The author constructs a measure of foreign activity that takes into account the composition of foreign demand for Canadian exports. It has a number of interesting features.