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We propose a model to understand low observed migration rates by considering the interaction between location and wealth decisions. We look at different policies and find that temporary moving vouchers only slightly increase welfare, while lower housing regulations can decrease the welfare gap by lowering house prices nationwide.

This paper introduces a new methodology to date systemic financial stress events in a transparent, objective and reproducible way. The financial cycle is captured by a monthly country-specific financial stress index.

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Promissory Notes

The notes featured on the cover measure approximately 21 cm x 8 cm and form part of the National Currency Collection, Bank of Canada.

Photography by Gord Carter, Ottawa

Recent international experience with the effective lower bound on nominal interest rates has rekindled interest in the benefits of inflation targets above 2 per cent. We evaluate whether an increase in the inflation target to 3 or 4 per cent could improve macroeconomic stability in the Canadian economy.

Across several dimensions of lender of last resort policy, I highlight broad changes that have occurred since the 2008–09 global financial crisis and discuss some of the key challenges, choices and considerations facing the designers of central bank liquidity tools today.

This research develops a model in which the economy is directly influenced by how pessimistic or optimistic economic agents are about the future. The agents may hold different views and update them as new economic data become available.

How should a central bank conduct quantitative easing (QE) in a monetary union when regions differ in their size and portfolio characteristics? Optimal QE policy suggests allocating greater purchases from the region that faces stronger portfolio frictions, and not necessarily according to each region’s size.

In this paper we study the impact of immigration to the United States on the vote for the Republican Party by analyzing county-level data on election outcomes between 1990 and 2010. Our main contribution is to separate the effect of high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants, by exploiting the different geography and timing of the inflows of these two groups of immigrants.

Commentary and technical data relating to the 2016 target renewal.

In recent years, the Bank has put renewed emphasis on analyzing monetary variables and on developing models that incorporate money as an active part of the transmission mechanism. In this article, Dinah Maclean describes how the monetary aggregates are used in the formulation of monetary policy analysis at the Bank, outlining the key tools and models used. The most important money-based model currently in use is the M1-VECM. In this model, deviations in the money supply from the long-term demand for money cause changes in inflation. The author briefly describes the "active-money" paradigm underlying this model and explains the key equations within it. Other simpler empirical models are also outlined, including single-equation indicator models for output based on the narrow aggregates, a neural network, and a model based on the broader aggregate M2++. A detailed technical annex provides details on model equations and coefficient values.