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Some suggest the global economy is facing a fourth industrial revolution. Bank researchers discuss the possible implications of digitalization on the economy. This issue also shares insights on the effectiveness of some unconventional monetary policies in a small open economy, how Government of Canada bonds are used throughout their life cycle, as well as how the Big Six Canadian banks choose their funding strategies and why. The final article examines the slow growth in business investment.

This paper documents the rate at which labour flows between industries and between firms within industries using the most recent data available. It examines the determinants of these flows and their relationship with the productivity growth.

The paper examines three equity-based structural models to study the nonlinear relationship between equity and credit default swap (CDS) prices. These models differ in the specification of the default barrier.

Our contribution in this paper is threefold. First, we survey the empirical literature on consumption smoothing mechanisms of regional economic shocks. Second, building on the work of Asdrubali et al. (1996), we present evidence on the role played by various smoothing mechanisms for specific economic shocks affecting Canadian provinces. Third, we assess whether smoothing mechanisms […]

Economists' long-standing interest in the degree to which exchange rate movements are reflected in prices was rekindled in the 1970s by a combination of rising inflation and the adoption of more flexible exchange rate regimes in many industrialized countries. Specifically, there were concerns that a large currency depreciation could degenerate into an inflationary spiral. Such fears were curtailed in the 1980s and early 1990s as industrialized countries began to reduce and stabilize their inflation rates. The low-inflation period most industrialized countries entered approximately a decade ago coincided with significant exchange rate depreciations that had much smaller effects on consumer prices than expected. This led to a belief that the extent to which exchange rate movements are passed through to consumer prices has declined. In this article, the authors examine why pass-through could be incomplete and review empirical estimates to determine whether pass-through has indeed declined, suggesting possible reasons for this decline and discussing the implications for monetary policy.

A central bank's main concern is the general direction of future inflation, and not transitory fluctuations of the inflation rate. As a result, this paper is concerned with forecasting a simple measure of the trend of inflation, the eight-quarter CPI-inflation rate. The primary objective is to improve the M1-based vector-error-correction model (VECM) developed by Hendry […]

Changes in risk perception have been used in various contexts to explain shorter-term developments in financial markets, as part of a mechanism that amplifies fluctuations in financial markets, as well as in accounts of "irrational exuberance."

Merchants who accept credit cards face payment processing fees. In most countries, the no-surcharge rule prohibits them from using surcharges to pass these fees on to customers.

This paper studies the formation of consumers’ inflation expectations using micro-level data from the Michigan Survey. It shows that beyond the well-established socio-economic determinants of inflation expectations such as gender, income or education, other characteristics such as the households’ financial situation and their purchasing attitudes also matter.