Asymmetric Risks to the Economic Outlook Arising from Financial System Vulnerabilities Staff Analytical Note 2018-6 Thibaut Duprey When financial system vulnerabilities are elevated, they can give rise to asymmetric risks to the economic outlook. To illustrate this, I consider the economic outlook presented in the Bank of Canada’s October 2017 Monetary Policy Report in the context of two key financial system vulnerabilities: high levels of household indebtedness and housing market imbalances. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Monetary and financial indicators, Monetary policy and uncertainty, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): C, C0, C01, C1, C11, C15, E, E1, E17, E3, E32, E37, E4, E44, E47, E5, E58, E6, E66, G, G0, G01, G1, G18
Can Media and Text Analytics Provide Insights into Labour Market Conditions in China? Staff Working Paper 2018-12 Jeannine Bailliu, Xinfen Han, Mark Kruger, Yu-Hsien Liu, Sri Thanabalasingam The official Chinese labour market indicators have been seen as problematic, given their small cyclical movement and their only-partial capture of the labour force. In our paper, we build a monthly Chinese labour market conditions index (LMCI) using text analytics applied to mainland Chinese-language newspapers over the period from 2003 to 2017. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics, Labour markets JEL Code(s): C, C3, C38, C5, C55, E, E2, E24, E27
Dismiss the Gap? A Real-Time Assessment of the Usefulness of Canadian Output Gaps in Forecasting Inflation Staff Working Paper 2018-10 Lise Pichette, Marie-Noëlle Robitaille, Mohanad Salameh, Pierre St-Amant We use a new real-time database for Canada to study various output gap measures. This includes recently developed measures based on models incorporating many variables as inputs (and therefore requiring real-time data for many variables). Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices, Potential output JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, E, E3, E37
The Government of Canada Debt Securities Data Set Technical Report No. 112 Jeffrey Gao, Francisco Rivadeneyra, Gabriel Rodriguez Rondon We present the daily time series of the outstanding amounts of all Government of Canada marketable debt securities from July 2001 to June 2017. Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Debt management, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C8, C80, G, G1, G10, H, H6, H63
A Calibrated Model of Intraday Settlement Staff Discussion Paper 2018-3 Héctor Pérez Saiz, Siddharth Untawala, Gabriel Xerri This paper estimates potential exposures, netting benefits and settlement gains by merging retail and wholesale payments into batches and conducting multiple intraday settlements in this hypothetical model of a single "calibrated payments system." The results demonstrate that credit risk exposures faced by participants in the system are largely dependent on their relative activity in the retail and wholesale payments systems. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C5, C58, G, G2, G21, G23
Tail Risk in a Retail Payment System: An Extreme-Value Approach Staff Discussion Paper 2018-2 Héctor Pérez Saiz, Blair Williams, Gabriel Xerri The increasing importance of risk management in payment systems has led to the development of an array of sophisticated tools designed to mitigate tail risk in these systems. In this paper, we use extreme value theory methods to quantify the level of tail risk in the Canadian retail payment system (ACSS) for the period from 2002 to 2015. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C5, C58, G, G2, G21, G23
Modeling Fluctuations in the Global Demand for Commodities Staff Working Paper 2018-4 Lutz Kilian, Xiaoqing Zhou It is widely understood that the real price of globally traded commodities is determined by the forces of demand and supply. One of the main determinants of the real price of commodities is shifts in the demand for commodities associated with unexpected fluctuations in global real economic activity. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F4, F44, Q, Q1, Q11, Q3, Q31, Q4, Q41, Q43
Wages: Measurement and Key Drivers Staff Analytical Note 2018-2 Dany Brouillette, Jonathan Lachaine, Benoit Vincent Available sources of hourly wage data in Canada sometimes send conflicting signals about wage growth. This note thus has two objectives: first, we develop a wage measure—the wage-common—to better capture the (underlying) wage pressures reflecting the common trend across the available data sources. Second, we re-examine the relationship between wage growth and macro drivers (labour market slack and labour productivity). Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Labour markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): C, C3, C38, J, J3
Merchant Acceptance of Cash and Credit Cards at the Point of Sale Staff Analytical Note 2018-1 Ben Fung, Kim Huynh, Kerry Nield, Angelika Welte Recent data show that the use of credit cards in Canada has been increasing, while the use of cash has been declining. At the same time, only two-thirds of small or medium-sized businesses accept credit cards. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial services JEL Code(s): C, C2, D, D1, E, E4, E41
Wage Dynamics and Returns to Unobserved Skill Staff Working Paper 2017-61 Lance Lochner, Youngmin Park, Youngki Shin Economists disagree about the factors driving the substantial increase in residual wage inequality in the U.S. over the past few decades. We identify and estimate a general model of log wage residuals that incorporates: (i) changing returns to unobserved skills, (ii) a changing distribution of unobserved skills, and (iii) changing volatility in wages due to factors unrelated to skills. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Labour markets JEL Code(s): C, C2, C23, J, J2, J24, J3, J31