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We use a new real-time database for Canada to study various output gap measures. This includes recently developed measures based on models incorporating many variables as inputs (and therefore requiring real-time data for many variables).

The authors analyze the dynamics of national saving–investment relationships to determine the degree of international capital mobility.

This paper outlines and assesses the various channels through which digitalization can affect prices of goods and services.

This paper illustrates a model of predetermined pricing, where firms set a fixed schedule of nominal prices at the time of price readjustment, based on the work of Fischer (1977). This type of price-setting specification cannot produce any excess persistence in a fixed-duration model of staggered prices, but we show that with a probabilistic model of price adjustment, as in Calvo (1983), a predetermined pricing specification can produce excess persistence.

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.

This paper examines the empirical performance of alternatives to the monetary aggregates currently published by the Bank of Canada. The results show that real M1 and real M1a perform about equally well in providing leading information about real output at short horizons. However, on theoretical grounds, M1a is a more attractive aggregate, since it excludes […]

Financial and monetary variables have long been known to contain useful leading information regarding economic activity. In this paper, the authors wish to determine whether the forecasting performance of such variables can be improved using neural network models. The main findings are that, at the 1-quarter forecasting horizon, neural networks yield no significant forecast improvements. […]

This article describes the Bank of Canada’s version of the Global Economy Model structured to incorporate an active banking system that features an interbank market and cross-border lending. After describing the new model, the authors use it to examine the responses of selected U.S. and Canadian macroeconomic variables to a “credit crunch” in the United States and also to study the impact of changes in the regulatory limits to bank leverage in Canada. They also discuss the relative merits of a monetary policy framework based on inflation targeting and one based on price-level targeting in the presence of shocks to the U.S. and Canadian banking sectors.

We analyze the evolution of macroeconomic uncertainty in the United States, based on the forecast errors of consensus survey forecasts of different economic indicators. Comprehensive information contained in the survey forecasts enables us to capture a real-time subjective measure of uncertainty in a simple framework.