Capital Gains and Inflation Taxes in a Life-cycle Model Staff Working Paper 1999-2 Charles Leung, Guang-Jia Zhang Inflation distorts an economy through many channels. This paper highlights the interaction between inflation and capital gains tax and how they distort an economy through the financial market. Several observations motivate this research. First, capital formation or investment is an important channel for economic agents to smooth their consumption over their life cycles. Second, capital […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation: costs and benefits JEL Code(s): E, E5, E6
Dynamic Employment and Hours Effects of Government Spending Shocks Staff Working Paper 1999-1 Mingwei Yuan, Wenli Li In this paper, we analyze the dynamic behaviour of employment and hours worked per worker in a stochastic general equilibrium model with a matching mechanism between vacancies and unemployed workers. The model is estimated for the United States using the Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) estimation technique. An increase in government spending raises hours worked […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Fiscal policy, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E3, E32, E6, E62, J, J6, J64
Can a Matching Model Explain the Long-Run Increase in Canada's Unemployment Rate? Staff Working Paper 1998-19 Andreas Hornstein, Mingwei Yuan The authors construct a simple general equilibrium model of unemployment and calibrate it to the Canadian economy. Job creation and destruction are endogenous. In this model, they consider several potential factors that could contribute to the long-run increase in the Canadian unempoloyment rate: a more generous unemployment insurance system, higher layoff costs, higher discretionary taxes, […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Fiscal policy, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E6, J, J4
La politique monétaire a-t-elle des effets asymétriques sur l'emploi? Staff Working Paper 1998-17 Lise Pichette Several economists, including Cover (1992), Ammer and Brunner (1995), Macklem, Paquet, and Phaneuf (1996), have worked over the past few years to determine whether monetary policy shocks have asymmetric effects on output. These authors have generally found that negative monetary shocks tend to reduce output growth significantly, and that positive shocks generally have a weaker […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5
Consumer Attitudes, Uncertainty, and Consumer Spending Staff Working Paper 1998-16 Denise Côté, Marianne Johnson This study examines the link between consumer expenditures and the Conference Board's Index of Consumer Attitudes, an index highly regarded for some time as a useful leading indicator of consumer expenditures. However, the theory that identifies why it may be useful in an analysis of consumption is less well established. To explore this question, we […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Domestic demand and components, Economic models JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, E, E2
On the Believable Benefits of Low Inflation Staff Working Paper 1998-15 Christopher Ragan This paper reviews the existing theoretical and empirical literature addressing the benefits of low inflation. The ultimate goal is to arrive at a set of benefits in which a monetary authority can have genuine confidence. I argue that the current state of economic research—both empirical and theoretical—provides little basis for believing in significant observable benefits […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation: costs and benefits JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31
Un examen de la crédibilité de la politique monétaire au Canada Staff Working Paper 1998-12 Patrick Perrier In this study, the author uses survey data on inflationary expectations to obtain information about the credibility of Canada's monetary policy. By comparing the differences between the forecasts made by survey participants with the targets set by the Bank of Canada for the 1992-1996 period (the period covered by the study), it was possible to […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation targets JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52
Liquidity Effects and Market Frictions Staff Working Paper 1998-11 Scott Hendry, Guang-Jia Zhang The goal of this paper is to shed light on the nature of the monetary transmission mechanism. Specifically, we attempt to tackle two problems in standard limited-participation models: (1) the interest rate liquidity effect is not as persistent as in the data; and (2) some nominal variables are unrealistically volatile. To address these problems, we […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5
Uncertainty and Multiple Paradigms of the Transmission Mechanism Staff Working Paper 1998-7 Walter Engert, Jack Selody An important challenge facing central banks is making decisions under uncertainty about the dynamic effects of monetary policy actions. The authors stress the importance of explicitly recognizing uncertainty about the transmission mechanism when formulating policy advice. They argue that one way to manage monetary policy under uncertainty is to draw on both an output-gap paradigm […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Monetary policy and uncertainty, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E5
Forecasting Inflation with the M1-VECM: Part Two Staff Working Paper 1998-6 Walter Engert, Scott Hendry A central bank's main concern is the general direction of future inflation, and not transitory fluctuations of the inflation rate. As a result, this paper is concerned with forecasting a simple measure of the trend of inflation, the eight-quarter CPI-inflation rate. The primary objective is to improve the M1-based vector-error-correction model (VECM) developed by Hendry […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Inflation and prices, Monetary aggregates JEL Code(s): C, C3, C5, E, E3, E4, E5