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While greater global financial integration is beneficial, the authors discuss how foreign capital inflows can also facilitate the buildup of domestic vulnerabilities and potentially lead to destabilizing reversals. Canada’s current international investment position is typical of advanced economies and will likely continue to act as an economic stabilizer. However, the growth and composition of Canada’s international investment position warrant continued monitoring.

Since the global financial crisis, advanced-economy wage growth has been generally low relative to past recoveries, especially after accounting for the evolution of labour market conditions over this period. This paper investigates a variety of potential explanations for this weakness, drawing on findings from the literature as well as analysis of recent labour market data in advanced economies.

We examine how consumers have adjusted their payment habits during the COVID-19 pandemic. They seem to perform fewer transactions, spend more in each transaction, use less cash at the point of sale and withdraw cash from ATMs linked to their financial institution more often than from other ATMs.

We construct new indicators of demand and supply for the Canadian economy by using natural language processing techniques to analyze earnings calls of publicly listed firms. Our results indicate that the new indicators could help central banks identify inflationary pressures in real time.

Following the financial crisis, there has been increased regulatory focus on the management of liquidity in mutual funds and, specifically, whether funds hold enough liquidity to guard against the potential for investor runs.

Inflation-targeting frameworks have remained relatively stable over the past few years despite significant challenges, including prolonged low inflation, a large negative commodity price shock and rising financial stability concerns in some economies. The tools used by central banks have, however, evolved substantially. This article provides a survey of the developments in the inflation-targeting frameworks of 10 central banks in advanced economies that correspond to the three research areas of the Bank of Canada’s 2016 renewal: the level of the inflation target, the measurement of core inflation and financial stability considerations in the formulation of monetary policy.

Central banks can implement unconventional monetary policy measures to provide additional easing when policy interest rates come close to their lower limit. To date, the international experience with tools such as quantitative easing and negative interest rates has been largely positive. Central banks may also use several such measures simultaneously, with often mutually reinforcing effects. Yet, unconventional tools are also subject to potential limits, and the costs associated with these measures could rise with extensive and prolonged use.

What are the main drivers behind the monetary policy reaction function of the People’s Bank of China?