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This paper explores the arguments for and against a common currency for Canada and the United States and attempts to determine whether such an arrangement would offer any significant advantages for Canada compared with the present flexible exchange rate system. The paper first reviews the theoretical arguments advanced in the economics literature in support of fixed and flexible currency arrangements. A discussion of Canada's past experience with the two exchange rate systems follows, after which there is a survey of the empirical evidence published on Canada's current and prospective suitability for some form of fixed currency arrangement with the United States. The final section of the paper examines critically a number of concerns raised about the behaviour of the current flexible exchange rate system.

The Bank of Canada 2015 Retailer Survey on the Cost of Payment Methods faced low response rates and outliers in sample data for two of its retailer strata: chains and large independent businesses. This technical report investigates whether it is appropriate to combine these two strata to produce more accurate estimates of the total private cost to large businesses of the main payment methods.

We study constrained-efficient bank capital regulation in a model with market-imposed equity requirements. Banks hold equity buffers to insure against sudden loss of access to funding. However, in the model, banks choose to only partially self-insure because equity is privately costly.

The author introduces a central counterparty (CCP) into a model of a repo market. Without the CCP, there exist multiple equilibria in the model. In one of the equilibria, a repo market emerges as bond dealers and cash investors choose to arrange repos in an over-the-counter bond market.

This issue includes analysis of the unconventional monetary policies recently implemented by central banks, and also presents Bank research in two areas - the migration of labour between economic regions in Canada, and the asset-allocation and funding decisions for Canada’s foreign exchange reserves.

We estimate an aggregate elasticity of substitution between capital and labor near or below one, which implies that capital deepening cannot explain the global decline in labor's share. Our methodology derives from transition paths in the neo-classical growth model.

During the nineties, stock prices increased remarkably. The number of households owning stocks also rose considerably. If stock market wealth has an effect on consumers' decisions, then the rise in equity prices could have contributed to the growth in consumption in recent years.

We study the impact government expenditure has on inflation. We find that changes in government expenditure account for a substantial portion of inflation variations. We also find that inflation and inflation expectations respond negatively to fiscal spending shocks, reaffirming the supply-side channel through which inflation responds to fiscal expansions.

The authors describe the principal results obtained from a new method applied to the estimation of potential U.S. GDP.

The author reviews the theoretical and empirical literature to examine the traditional perception that the following trade-off exists between economic efficiency and stability in the banking system: a competitive banking system is more efficient and therefore important to growth, but market power is necessary for stability in the banking system.