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2133 Results

June 2, 2006

Another Look at the Inflation-Target Horizon

The conduct of monetary policy within an inflation-targeting framework requires the establishment of an inflation-target horizon, which is the average time it takes inflation to return to the target. Policy-makers have an interest in communicating this horizon, since it is likely to help anchor inflation expectations. This article focuses on the determination of the appropriate policy horizon by reporting on two recent Bank of Canada studies. The evidence suggests that the current target horizon of six to eight quarters remains appropriate. It is important to note that the duration of the optimal inflation-target horizon varies widely, depending on the combination of shocks to the economy. In rare cases when the financial accelerator is triggered by a persistent shock, such as an asset-price bubble, it may be appropriate to take a longer view of the inflation-target horizon.
January 14, 2008

Backgrounder on Questions in the Business Outlook Survey Concerning Past Sales and Credit Conditions

Starting with the winter 2007–08 survey, the results of two additional questions became included in the Business Outlook Survey (BOS) publication: the balance of opinion on past sales and the balance of opinion on credit conditions. This backgrounder briefly describes the two questions and presents the correlations between the responses and relevant economic data.
Content Type(s): Background materials

Price Caps in Canadian Bond Borrowing Markets

Price controls, or caps, can lead to shortages, as 1970’s gasoline price controls illustrate. One million trades show that the market for borrowing bonds in Canada has an implicit price cap: traders are willing to pay no more than the overnight interest rate to borrow a bond. This suggests the probability of a shortage increases when interest rates are very low.

Supply Drivers of US Inflation Since the COVID-19 Pandemic

Staff working paper 2023-19 Serdar Kabaca, Kerem Tuzcuoglu
This paper examines the contribution of several supply factors to US headline inflation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. We identify six supply shocks using a structural VAR model: labor supply, labor productivity, global supply chain, oil price, price mark-up and wage mark-up shocks.

Estimating the Costs of Electronic Retail Payment Networks: A Cross-Country Meta Analysis

Staff discussion paper 2025-17 Cam Donohoe, Youming Liu
We explore how many electronic funds transfer (EFT) systems can viably coexist within a jurisdiction at efficient scale by estimating the cost curve of the average EFT. We estimate the marginal cost to be approximately $0.55 per transaction, and the fixed cost to be approximately $83 million per year.
December 13, 1999

Feedback Rules for Inflation Control: An Overview of Recent Literature

Feedback rules are rules aimed at guiding policy-makers as they face the problem of keeping inflation close to a desired path without causing variability elsewhere in the economy. These rules link short-term interest rates, controlled by the central bank, to the rate of inflation and/or its deviation from a target rate. The authors describe the most popular types of feedback rules and review some simulation results.

Estimating the Appropriate Quantity of Settlement Balances in a Floor System

Staff discussion paper 2023-26 Narayan Bulusu, Matthew McNeely, Kaetlynd McRae, Jonathan Witmer
This paper presents two complementary approaches to estimating the appropriate quantity of settlement balances needed to effectively operate monetary policy under a floor system in Canada.
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