Search

This paper develops a dynamic, stochastic, general-equilibrium (DGSE) model for the Canadian economy and evaluates the real effects of monetary policy shocks. To generate high and persistent real effects, the model combines nominal frictions in the form of costly price adjustment with real rigidities modelled as convex costs of adjusting capital and employment.

This paper empirically assesses the effectiveness of the Bank of Canada's term Purchase and Resale Agreement (PRA) facility in reducing short-term bank funding pressures, as measured by the CDOR-OIS spread.

This paper assesses the effectiveness of Canada's official foreign exchange intervention in moderating intraday volatility of the Can$/US$ exchange rate, using a 2-1/2-year sample of 10-minute exchange rate data. The use of high frequency data (higher than daily frequency) should help in assessing the impact of intervention since the foreign exchange market is efficient and […]

The impact of oil price shocks on the U.S. economy is a topic of considerable debate. In this paper, we examine the response of U.S. consumers to the 2014–2015 negative oil price shock using representative survey data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey.

Standard new trade models depict producers as heterogeneous in total factor productivity. In this paper, I adapt the Eaton and Kortum (2002) model of international trade to incorporate tradable intermediate goods and producer heterogeneity in value-added productivity.

Over the past 20 years, there has been a major shift away from the use of paper-based retail payment instruments, such as cash and cheques, toward electronic means of payment, such as debit cards and credit cards. Recent Bank of Canada research on consumers’ choice of payment instruments indicates that cash is frequently used for transactions with low values because of its speed, ease of use and wide acceptance, while debit and credit cards are more commonly used for transactions with higher values because of perceived attributes such as safety and record keeping. While innovations in retail payments currently being introduced into the Canadian marketplace could lead to a further reduction in the use of cash over the longer term, the implications for the use of cash of some of the structural and regulatory developments under way are less clear.

This paper examines the relationship between aggregate consumer spending and credit availability in the United States. The author finds that consumer spending falls (rises) in response to a reduction (increase) in credit availability.

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.

In this paper we measure potential output (and consequently the output gap) using state-space models. Given that the estimated output gap is used as an indicator to measure the extent of inflationary pressures in the economy, we evaluate the use of such models for the implementation of monetary policy. Our starting point is the Gerlach […]

This paper finds a strong empirical link between domestic banking sector competitiveness and de facto international integration. De-facto international integration is measured through a new index of financial integration, which measures, for deviations from covered interest parity, the size of no-arbitrage bands and the speed of arbitrage outside the no-arbitrage band.