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There are indications that business dynamism has declined in advanced economies. In particular, firm entry and exit rates have fallen, suggesting that the creative destruction process has lost some of its vitality. Meanwhile, productivity growth has slowed. Some believe that lower entry and exit rates partly explain the weaker productivity growth.

We study how input-output networks affect the speed of technology adoption. In particular, we model the decision to adopt the programming language Python 3 by software packages. Python 3 provides advanced features but is not backward compatible with Python 2, which implies it comes with adoption costs.

To address the challenges posed by global systemically important banks (G-SIBs), the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision recommended an “additional loss absorbency requirement” for these institutions. Along these lines, I develop a microfounded design of capital surcharges that target the interconnectedness component of systemic risk.

We study how different monetary policies affect the yield curve and interact. Our study highlights the importance of the spillover structure across the yield curve for policy-making.

Can Bitcoin survive? Some say it will become vulnerable to attacks as the rewards for processing Bitcoin transactions continue to decline. The economics of fixed costs suggest the specialized hardware used to mine Bitcoin may be key to its survival.

Using two complementary approaches, we investigate the importance of U.S. macroeconomic news in driving low-frequency fluctuations in the term structure of interest rates in Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom. We find that U.S. macroeconomic news is particularly important to explain changes in the expectation components of the nominal, real and break-even inflation rates of small open economies.

Text of major 1995 lecture by Bank Governor Gordon Thiessen, plus articles from Bank of Canada Review and other sources

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.

Is obscuring prices always bad for consumers? The answer depends on the market structure and on the negotiating power between manufacturers and retailers.

I show that maturity considerations affect the optimal conduct of monetary and fiscal policy during a period of government debt reduction. I consider a New Keynesian model and study a dynamic game of monetary and fiscal policy authorities without commitment, characterizing the incentives that drive the choice of interest rate.