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Recent consumer and merchant surveys show a decrease in the use of cash at the point of sale. Increasingly, consumers and merchants have access to a growing array of payment innovations as substitutes for cash.

Narrow Money—Transactions Money The growth rate of the narrow monetary aggregates picked up in 1999, reflecting the expansion in economic activity and the stabilization of interest rates. The sharp acceleration of the narrow aggregates in recent months suggests buoyant growth in GDP in coming quarters. Signs of a possible rise in inflation are also emerging. Over the longer run, for inflation to remain in the Bank's 1 to 3 per cent target range, the growth of narrow money would have to slow down from its current pace. In 1999, the growth rate of M1 also began to converge with that of the other narrow aggregates, M1+ and M1++. This suggests that the influence of the special factors that have been affecting the growth rate of M1 has diminished. Broad Money—"Store of Value" Household savings represent deferred consumption, and therefore the broad monetary aggregate provides information about future spending and, hence, inflation. In 1999, the very broad measure of money, M2++, grew at much the same rate as it did in 1998. This outcome is in line with inflation remaining in the inflation-control target range over the next couple of years.

In complex and interconnected banking systems, counterparty risk does not depend only on the risk of the immediate counterparty but also on the risk of others in the network of exposures.

We summarize the review and renewal process at four central banks (Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Bank of England, Sveriges Riksbank and the US Federal Reserve Bank) and compare them with the process at the Bank of Canada, which has been well-established since 2001.

We perform an analysis to determine how well the introduction of a countercyclical loanto- value (LTV) ratio can reduce household indebtedness and housing price fluctuations compared with a monetary policy rule augmented with house price inflation.

This article explores the evolution of capital flows to emerging markets over the last 30 years with emphasis on the past decade. Capital markets in emerging-market economies have evolved substantially over the period, becoming increasingly deep and resilient. The author looks at how capital flows to these countries have changed in terms of magnitude, geographical distribution, the financial instruments used, and the country of origin. He also examines how changes in the investor base have affected these flows and reviews the factors underlying the growth of private capital flows in the 1990s.

Using highly disaggregated transaction-level trade data, we document the importance of new firm-level trade partner relationships and the addition of new products to existing relationships in driving aggregate trade flows.

We model how securities dealers respond to regulations on leverage, position and liquidity such as those imposed by the Basel III framework. We show that while asset prices exhibit greater price impact, bid-ask spreads do not change and trading volumes may even increase.

This paper documents a systematic pattern of how wages, hours and their relationship vary across firms of different sizes. Using a model with heterogeneous firms and workers, we show how the interplay between wages, hours and firm size affect worker sorting and inequality.

We assess how location affects house prices in Canada. The gap in prices between suburbs and downtown was closing gradually before the pandemic. The gap has been closing faster since spring 2020. This finding reflects a shift in preferences toward more living space.