Search

In a laboratory experiment, we ask participants to predict inflation using three different policy regimes: inflation targeting—with and without greater communication of the target—average inflation targeting and price level targeting. We use participants’ predictions to compare the level and stability of inflation under each regime.

Governor Tiff Macklem discusses how business investment and stronger productivity are vital to sustaining non-inflationary economic growth.

During the recent financial crisis, one of the forces set in motion by the initial losses on subprime-mortgage loans was a significant decline in the market liquidity of assets and in the ability of financial institutions to obtain funding in wholesale markets. In this article, the authors summarize recent research that clarifies the role of liquidity in destabilizing the financial system and examine the implications of this research for the recently announced financial system reforms, including Basel III.

Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn A. Wilkins discusses developments in the Canadian labour market and factors that may help explain why wage growth is slower than expected.

The resurgence of sizable current account imbalances in the major economies in recent years, particularly the tripling of the U.S. deficit, has led to renewed academic and public discussions about their sustainability. Jacob's main objective is to show that current account balances are simply the outcome of various relative structural and cyclical forces between trading partners. He reviews the factors behind the changes in the current account positions of the three largest industrial economies (the United States, Japan, and the euro area). Two strong determinants shaping the current account balances are the faster increase in U.S. productivity compared with that of other major economies and, more recently, the loosening in the U.S. fiscal stance. Jacob also reviews a range of outside assessments from such sources as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Monetary Fund, as well as the academic literature, to determine the possible risks to macroeconomic and financial stability.

I use firm-product-level data for Canadian online retailers to study how product scope (the average number of product categories per firm) evolved from 1999 to 2012. During this period, product scope dropped monotonically from 59 to 5 product categories.

We assess whether unconventional monetary and fiscal policy implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. contribute to the 2021-2023 inflation surge through the lens of several different empirical methodologies and establish a null result.

Cover page

Promissory Note, 1712

The note measures 28 cm x 16 cm and forms part of the National Currency Collection, Bank of Canada.

Photography by Gord Carter, Ottawa

Under bond-rate transmission of monetary policy, the authors show that a generalized Taylor Principle applies, in which the average anticipated path of policy responses to inflation is subject to a lower bound of unity. This result helps explain how bond rates may exhibit stable responses to inflation, even in periods of passive policy.