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Recent evidence suggests that the extent of downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) in the Canadian labour market has risen following the 2008–09 recession (see Brouillette, Kostyshyna and Kyui 2016).

During the period of 2008 to 2012, the rules for government-backed mortgage insurance were tightened on four occasions. In this note, we estimate the effects through a simple econometric exercise using a vector error-correction model (VECM).

This paper tests between fads and bubbles using a new empirical strategy (based on switching-regression econometrics) for distinguishing between competing asset-pricing models. By extending the Blanchard and Watson (1982) model, we show how stochastic bubbles can lead to regime-switching in stock market returns.

The first step in designing effective policies to stabilize an economy is to understand business cycles. No country is isolated from the world economy and external shocks are becoming increasingly important.

This paper examines the ability of linear and nonlinear models to replicate features of real Canadian GDP. We evaluate the models using various business-cycle metrics.

The relationships among the quantity theory of money, monetarism and policy regimes based on money-growth and inflation targeting are briefly discussed as a prelude to an exposition of alternative views of money's role in the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. The passive-money view treats the money supply as an endogenous variable that plays no role […]

The authors develop a projection model of the euro area and the United Kingdom. The model consists of two country blocks, endogenous to each other via the foreign demand channel.

The author studies the welfare implications of adjustment programs supported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He uses a model where an endogenous borrowing constraint, set up by international lenders who will never lend more than a debt ceiling, forces the borrowing economy to always choose repayment over default.

This article examines another strategy in the Bank's approach to dealing with an uncertain world: the use of carefully articulated models to produce economic forecasts and to examine the implications of the various risks to those forecasts. Economic models are deliberate simplifications of a complex world that allow economists to make predictions that are reasonably accurate and that can be easily understood and communicated. By using several models, based on competing paradigms, the Bank minimizes policy errors that could result from relying on one view of the world and one philosophy of model design. The authors review some of the models currently used at the Bank, as well as the role of judgment in the projection process.

The financial crisis of 2007-09 and the subsequent extended period of historically low real interest rates have revived the question of whether economic agents are willing to take on more risk when interest rates remain low for a prolonged time period. This increased appetite for risk, which causes economic agents to search for investment assets and strategies that generate higher investment returns, has been called the risk-taking channel of monetary policy. Recent academic research on banks suggests that lending policies in times of low interest rates can be consistent with the existence of a risk-taking channel of monetary policy in Europe, South America, the United States and Canada. Specifically, studies find that the terms of loans to risky borrowers become less stringent in periods of low interest rates. This risk-taking channel may amplify the effects of traditional transmission mechanisms, resulting in the creation of excessive credit.