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Many central banks are contemplating whether to issue central bank digital currency. This piece explores the implications as well as potential motivators of such a step.

Stock market fundamentals would not seem to meaningfully predict returns over a shorter-term horizon—instead, I shift focus to severe downside risk (i.e., crashes).

This paper studies how the outcome of Bayesian persuasion depends on a sender’s information. I study a game in which, prior to the sender’s information disclosure, the designer can restrict the most informative signal that the sender can generate.

We document countercyclical corporate saving behavior with the degree of countercyclicality varying nonmonotonically with firm size. We then develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms to explain the pattern and study its implications for business cycles.

Many derivatives markets use collateral requirements calculated with industry-standard but dated methods that are not designed with systemic risk in mind. This paper explores whether the conservative nature of conventional collateral requirements outweighs their lack of consideration of systemic risk.

This article describes the major trends in the growth of labour productivity in Canada since the early 1960s and summarizes our current knowledge about the causes of the historical patterns. Particular attention is given to the period since the mid-1990s during which productivity growth has been significantly higher in the United States than in Canada. The author reviews the empirical evidence on the contribution of information and communication technology to the recent difference between Canadian and U.S. rates of productivity growth. Other determinants of a country's productivity performance, such as human capital formation and openness to international trade, are also examined. The article concludes with an assessment of the prospects for an increase in the trend rate of productivity growth in Canada over the coming years.

Commodity prices are once again making headlines. Some commodity prices, such as those for copper and cattle, have reached record highs; others are rising quickly and approaching previous peaks.

We propose a macroeconomic model with a nonlinear Phillips curve that has a flat slope when inflationary pressures are subdued and steepens when inflationary pressures are elevated. Our model can generate more sizable inflation surges due to cost-push and demand shocks than a standard linearized model when inflation is high.

In recent years, the Bank has put renewed emphasis on analyzing monetary variables and on developing models that incorporate money as an active part of the transmission mechanism. In this article, Dinah Maclean describes how the monetary aggregates are used in the formulation of monetary policy analysis at the Bank, outlining the key tools and models used. The most important money-based model currently in use is the M1-VECM. In this model, deviations in the money supply from the long-term demand for money cause changes in inflation. The author briefly describes the "active-money" paradigm underlying this model and explains the key equations within it. Other simpler empirical models are also outlined, including single-equation indicator models for output based on the narrow aggregates, a neural network, and a model based on the broader aggregate M2++. A detailed technical annex provides details on model equations and coefficient values.