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Given the influence that agents’ expectations have on key macroeconomic variables, it is surprising that very few papers have tried to extrapolate agents’ “true” expectations directly from the data. This paper presents one such approach, starting with the hypothesis that there is sluggishness in inflation and real GDP growth forecasts.

Consumers’ perceptions of current inflation remain elevated and are diverging from actual inflation. Perceptions of high inflation are also leading to persistently high expectations for inflation over the next 12 months. Consumers’ expectations for interest rates one year from now also remain high, and many consumers believe that the impacts of higher interest rates on their household spending are far from over. Homeowners with a variable-rate mortgage are more likely than other consumers to report being worse off due to high interest rates. Consumers’ plans to purchase services, such as vacations or concerts, are more widespread than plans to make major purchases of goods that are likely to be financed with loans, such as vehicles or appliances. Workers are reporting signs of job market cooling, such as more time spent looking for a new job, but they remain confident about the labour market.

Cash gives users a high level of privacy when making payments, but the use of cash to make payments is declining. People increasingly use debit cards, credit cards or other methods to pay.

Monetary policy in the presence of nominal debt and labour supply heterogeneity creates a policy trade-off: a short-term economic stimulus leads to persistently reduced output over the medium term. Price-level targeting weakens this trade-off and is better able to stabilize inflation and output than inflation targeting.

In this note, we find that market participants react to an unexpected change in the tone of Canadian monetary policy statements. When the market perceives that the Bank of Canada plans to tighten (or alternatively, loosen) the monetary policy earlier than previously expected, the Canadian dollar appreciates (or depreciates) and long-term Government of Canada bond yields increase (or decrease). The tone of a statement is particularly relevant to the market when the policy rate has been unchanged for some time.

We examine different monetary policy governance structures and discuss the important roles of non-legislated processes and practices. We also provide an update on monetary policy governance at the Bank of Canada and how it has evolved over time.

We study the causal effect of mortgage rate changes on consumer spending, debt repayment and defaults during an expansionary and a contractionary monetary policy episode in Canada. We find asymmetric responses of consumer durable spending, deleveraging and defaults. These findings help us to understand household sector response to interest rate changes.

Contactless payment cards are a competitive alternative to cash. Using Canadian panel data from 2010 to 2017, this study investigates whether contactless credit cards are an important contributor to the decline in the transactional use of cash. 

This report presents the details of a new semi-annual survey that will improve the Bank of Canada’s surveillance across the financial system and deepen efforts to engage with financial system participants. The survey collects expert opinions on the risks to and resilience of the Canadian financial system as well as on emerging trends and financial innovations. The report presents an overview of the survey and provides high-level results from the spring 2018 survey.