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To better understand price-setting behaviour in the Canadian economy, the Bank of Canada's regional offices surveyed a representative sample of 170 firms between July 2002 and March 2003. The authors discuss the reasons behind the survey, the methodology used to develop the questionnaire and conduct the interviews, and summarize the results. The study also assessed several explanations for holding prices steady despite market pressures for a change. The survey findings indicate that prices in Canada are relatively flexible and have become more flexible over the past decade. Price stickiness was generally found to originate in firms' fears of antagonizing customers or disturbing the goodwill or reputation developed with them. A detailed discussion of the results includes a consideration of their implications for monetary policy.

The objective of this paper is twofold. First, we assess whether financial education might be a suitable tool to promote the financial inclusion opportunities that big techs provide. Second, we study how this potential financial inclusion could impact financial stability.

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French Provincial Issues in Canada

The coins pictured on the cover are part of the National Currency Collection, Bank of Canada.
Photography by Gord Carter, Ottawa.

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Chargex

The artefacts on the cover are part of the National Currency Collection of the Bank of Canada.

Photography by Gord Carter

Offshoring has become an increasingly prominent aspect of the globalization process. Evidence over the past two decades suggests that offshoring has not exerted a noticeable impact on overall employment and earnings growth in advanced economies, but it has likely contributed to shifting the demand for labour towards higher-skilled jobs. There appear to be some positive effects of offshoring on productivity, but such effects differ by country.

The third strategy employed by the Bank when dealing with uncertainty is the consideration of appropriate simple reaction functions or "rules" for the setting of the policy interest rate. Since John Taylor's presentation of his much-discussed rule, research on simple policy rules has exploded. Simple rules have several advantages. In particular, they are easy to construct and communicate and are believed by some to be robust, in the sense of generating good results in a variety of economic models. This article provides an overview of the recent research regarding the usefulness and robustness of simple monetary policy rules, particularly in models of the Canadian economy. It also describes and explains the role of simple rules in the conduct of monetary policy in Canada.

A series of major international financial crises in the 1990s, and the recent introduction of the euro, have renewed interest in alternative exchange rate systems. The choice of exchange rate regime is particularly relevant for emerging-market countries because other countries are perceived either as having no alternative to their current exchange rate arrangement or as highly unlikely to change. This article examines the evolution of exchange rate regimes in emerging markets over the past decade and compares the strengths and weaknesses of the various available systems. These include intermediate regimes, such as the adjustable pegged exchange rate popular throughout much of the post—war period, and the two extreme exchange rate regimes: permanently fixed or freely floating exchange rate regimes. Two recently proposed alternatives are also evaluated: the Managed Floating Plus and Baskets, Bands, and Crawling Pegs. Both try to combine the best elements of the flexible and fixed exchange rate systems, but the Managed Floating Plus is deemed to be the more promising alternative.

Although many countries have abandoned monetary targeting in recent decades, monetary aggregates are still useful indicators of future economic activity. Past research has shown that, compared with other monetary aggregates and expressed in real terms, net M1 and gross M1 have traditionally provided superior leading information for output growth.

This article by the Bank's Web master details the development of the Bank's Web site and highlights some of its special features. It includes a description of dataBANK, a custom-built interface to the Bank's economic databases that gives visitors access to 220 data series. It also provides a mini tour of monetary policy material "on site," as well as a taste of things to come. Above all, this article invites you to come and visit our site.