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This paper attempts to identify the trend unemployment rate, an empirical concept, using cointegration theory. The authors examine whether there is a cointegrating relationship between the observed unemployment rate and various structural factors, focussing neither on the non-accelerating-inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) nor on the natural rate of unemployment, but rather on the trend unemployment rate, which they define in terms of cointegration.

This paper documents the properties of Government of Canada securities in cash, repo and securities lending transactions over their life cycle. By tracking every security from issuance to maturity, we are able to highlight inter-linkages between the markets for cash and for specific securities.

Ambler describes three new channels through which inflation affects economic welfare in New Keynesian models. These channels were absent from traditional analyses and may have caused researchers to underestimate the costs associated with variable inflation, even at relatively low levels of inflation. The article concludes with a preliminary assessment of the quantitative importance of the new channels and their significance for monetary policy.

The last few weeks have been a time of turbulence in financial markets. In times such as these, it is common for people to focus on day-by-day or even hour-by-hour events, and to lose sight of the future. But tonight, I want to focus on the future; specifically, the future of inflation targeting in Canada.

The Bank of Canada is one of very few central banks that has made records of the intraday timing of its intervention operations available to researchers.

Understanding what causes the exchange rate to move has been on ongoing challenge for economists. Despite extensive research, traditional macro models of exchange rate determination—with the exception of the Bank of Canada's exchange rate equation—have typically not fared well, motivating economists to explore new ways to model exchange rate movements that incorporate more complex and realistic settings. Within the context of the sharp appreciation of the Canadian dollar in 2003 and 2004, Bailliu and King review the macroeconomic models of exchange rates, as well as the micro-structure studies that highlight the importance of trading mechanisms, information asymmetry, and investor heterogeneity for explaining short-term dynamics in exchange rates. In addition to summarizing the current state of knowledge, they highlight recent advances and identify promising alternative approaches.

ToTEM – the Bank of Canada’s principal projection and policy-analysis model for the Canadian economy – is extended to include inventories. In the model, firms accumulate inventories of finished goods for their role in facilitating the demand for goods.

This paper evaluates the effects of high-frequency uncertainty shocks on a set of low-frequency macroeconomic variables that are representative of the U.S. economy. Rather than estimating models at the same common low-frequency, we use recently developed econometric models, which allows us to deal with data of different sampling frequencies.

Counterfeiting is a significant public policy issue, because paper money, despite rumours of its demise, remains an important part of our payments system.