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Today the Bank of Canada launched a digital database with more than 30 years of past staff economic projections of the Canadian economy.

While the Bank of Canada's inflation-control target is specified in terms of the rate of increase in the total consumer price index, the Bank uses a measure of trend or "core" inflation as a short-term guide for its monetary policy actions. When the inflation targets were renewed in May 2001, the Bank announced that it was adopting a new measure of core inflation. This measure excludes the eight most volatile components of the CPI and adjusts the remaining components for the effect of changes in indirect taxes. In this article, the author discusses the definition of the new measure of core inflation and describes some of its advantages relative to the previous measure. He notes that the new measure has a firmer statistical basis, has a better correspondence with economic theory, and does a better job of predicting future changes in overall inflation. While the new measure has these advantages, the Bank will continue to monitor a broad range of indicators when assessing the likely future path for inflation.

This paper provides an overview of cryptoasset exchanges. We contrast their design with exchanges in traditional financial markets and discuss emerging regulatory trends and innovations aimed at solving the problems cryptoasset exchanges face.

Staff projections provided for the Bank of Canada's monetary policy decision process take into account the integration of Canada's very open economy within the global economy, as well as its close real and financial linkages with the United States. To provide inputs for this projection, the Bank has developed several models, including MUSE, NEUQ (the New European Quarterly Model), and BoC-GEM (Bank of Canada Global Economy Model), to analyze and forecast economic developments in the rest of the world. The authors focus on MUSE, the model currently used to describe interaction among the principal U.S. economic variables, including gross domestic product, inflation, interest rates, and the exchange rate. Brief descriptions are also provided of NEUQ and BoC-GEM.

This paper studies optimal discretionary monetary and fiscal policy when the lower bound on nominal interest rates is occasionally binding in a model with nominal rigidities and long-term government debt. At the lower bound it is optimal for the government to temporarily reduce debt.

A low level of the neutral rate of interest increases the likelihood that a central bank’s policy rate will reach its effective lower bound (ELB) in future economic downturns. In a low neutral rate environment, using an extended monetary policy toolkit including forward guidance helps address the ELB challenge. Using the Bank’s Terms-of-Trade Economic Model, we assess the benefits and limitations of a state-contingent forward guidance implemented within a flexible inflation targeting framework.

Following the recent financial crisis, major central banks have introduced several types of unconventional monetary policy measures, including liquidity and credit facilities, asset purchases and forward guidance. To date, these measures appear to have been successful. They restored market functioning, facilitated the transmission of monetary policy and supported economic activity. They have potential costs, however, including challenges related to the greatly expanded balance sheets of central banks and the eventual exit from these measures, as well as the vulnerabilities that can arise from prolonged monetary accommodation.

We use relative value to measure limits to arbitrage in fixed-income markets. Relative value captures apparent deviations from no-arbitrage relationships. It is simple, intuitive and can be computed model-free for any bond.

Using Canadian matched employer-employee data, we show that working hours of different workers are gross complements in production rather than perfect substitutes, as is typically assumed by macroeconomic models of production.

The financial system makes an important contribution to the welfare of all Canadians. The ability of households and firms to confidently hold and transfer financial assets is one of the fundamental building blocks of the Canadian economy.