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In times of high uncertainty, governments often implement interventions such as bailouts to financial institutions. To use public resources efficiently and to avoid major spillovers to the rest of the economy, policy-makers try to identify which institutions should receive assistance.

This paper examines the effects that Canada's indebtedness has on Canadian real long-term interest rates, using the vector error-correction model (VECM). Our results show that there is a strongly cointegrated relationship between real interest rates in Canada, U.S. real interest rates, and Canadian public and external debt ratios.

Interest rate swaps and currency swaps are contracts in which counterparties agree to exchange cash flows according to a pre-arranged formula over a period of time. Since 1985, the federal government has been using such swaps to manage its liabilities in a cost-effective and flexible manner. The authors outline the characteristics of swap agreements and the ways in which the government uses them. They show that the swap program has been cost-effective, estimating that past and projected savings exceed $500 million. The authors also discuss the methods that the government uses to monitor the counterparty credit risk associated with these transactions.

Ian Foucher and Kyle Gray explain the different types of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which present both benefits and risks for investors. They discuss ways in which the risk characteristics of certain ETF products could have broader implications for the financial system, and describe the evolution of ETF market structure and regulation in different jurisdictions as authorities try to mitigate risks related to ETFs.

This report lays out elements of the Bank’s strategy related to climate change and details how the issue will be managed holistically across the organization, following the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.

Futurists have been speculating about the prospects for a cashless society for many years, and such predictions became more frequent following the introduction of "smart" cards - cards containing a computer chip - in the mid-1970s.

The year that just passed posed many challenges for all Canadians. The slowdown in the global economy became more pronounced as the year went on, and this affected households, businesses, and governments alike. The tragedy of 11 September compounded the economic difficulties and issues facing us all. Through this period of rapidly changing circumstances, the Bank met its responsibilities by responding quickly and vigorously to events in order to underpin confidence and support the economy.

Country market shares of U.S. non-energy imports have changed considerably since 2002, with varying volatility across three subperiods: pre-crisis (2002–07), crisis (2007–09) and post-crisis (2009–14). In this paper, we analyze market shares for four main trading partners of the United States (Canada, Mexico, China and Japan).

We develop and estimate a search model in which identical consumers trade with price-setting firms that differ in productivity. We use the estimated model to characterize the qualitative and quantitative differences in prices and markups across firms. We explore how individual firms respond to changes in cost and demand and how they pass these through to their prices and markup.

Real GDP growth is projected to average around 2 1/2 per cent over the next year before slowing to around 2 per cent in 2016.