May 14, 2015 Inflation Dynamics in the Post-Crisis Period Bank of Canada Review - Spring 2015 Christian Friedrich, Marc-André Gosselin Inflation rates in advanced economies experienced two consecutive puzzles during the period following the global financial crisis—unexpectedly high inflation from the end of 2009 to 2011 and unexpectedly low inflation from 2012 to the middle of 2014. We investigate these developments in two ways. First, we show that accounting for inflation expectations by households explains a significant share of the inflation puzzles at the international level. Second, we find that, for Canada, elevated competition in the retail sector is also important for understanding inflation dynamics in the post-crisis period. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Inflation and prices, International topics, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, F, F4, F41
May 14, 2015 The Slowdown in Global Trade Bank of Canada Review - Spring 2015 Michael Francis, Louis Morel Global trade growth has been weak during the period following the 2007–09 financial crisis. This is an important development for Canada, given the Canadian economy's high degree of openness to trade. This article investigates some of the factors behind the slowdown in global trade and finds that the weakness of global demand and its changing composition, increased protectionism and diminishing incentives to expand trade have all played a role. Some of these factors are likely to have only a temporary effect on trade growth, but others could be more long-lasting. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): International topics, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): F, F1, F4, F6
A Wake-Up-Call Theory of Contagion Staff Working Paper 2015-14 Christoph Bertsch, Toni Ahnert We propose a novel theory of financial contagion. We study global coordination games of regime change in two regions with an initially uncertain correlation of regional fundamentals. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Financial stability, International financial markets JEL Code(s): D, D8, D82, F, F3, G, G0, G01
Euro Area Government Bonds—Integration and Fragmentation During the Sovereign Debt Crisis Staff Working Paper 2015-13 Michael Ehrmann, Marcel Fratzscher The paper analyzes the integration of euro area sovereign bond markets during the European sovereign debt crisis. It tests for contagion (i.e., an intensification in the transmission of shocks across countries), fragmentation (a reduction in spillovers) and flight-to-quality patterns, exploiting the heteroskedasticity of intraday changes in bond yields for identification. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Financial markets, Interest rates, International financial markets JEL Code(s): E, E5, F, F3, G, G1, G15
Sluggish Exports in Advanced Economies: How Much Is Due to Demand? Staff Discussion Paper 2015-3 Louis Morel Exports in advanced economies have been relatively sluggish since 2011, growing at a much slower pace than observed before the global financial crisis. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): International topics, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): F, F1, F4
What Drives Bank-Intermediated Trade Finance? Evidence from Cross-Country Analysis Staff Working Paper 2015-8 Jose Maria Serena, Garima Vasishtha Empirical work on the underlying causes of the recent dislocations in bank-intermediated trade finance has been limited by the poor availability of hard data. This paper analyzes the key determinants of bank-intermediated trade finance using a novel data set covering ten banking jurisdictions. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F1, F14, F19
A New Data Set of Quarterly Total Factor Productivity in the Canadian Business Sector Staff Working Paper 2015-6 Shutao Cao, Sharon Kozicki In this paper, a quarterly growth-accounting data set is built for the Canadian business sector with the top-down approach of Diewert and Yu (2012). Inputs and outputs are measured and used to estimate the quarterly total factor productivity (TFP). Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D2, D24, F, F4, F43, O, O4, O47
Motivations for Capital Controls and Their Effectiveness Staff Working Paper 2015-5 Radhika Pandey, Gurnain Pasricha, Ila Patnaik, Ajay Shah We assess the motivations for changing capital controls and their effectiveness in India, a country with extensive and long-standing controls. We focus on the controls on foreign borrowing that can, in principle, be motivated by macroprudential concerns. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rate regimes, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F3, F32, G, G1, G15, G18
Does Financial Integration Increase Welfare? Evidence from International Household-Level Data Staff Working Paper 2015-4 Christian Friedrich Despite a vast empirical literature that assesses the impact of financial integration on the economy, evidence of substantial welfare gains from consumption risk sharing remains elusive. While maintaining the usual cross-country perspective of the literature, this paper explicitly accounts for household heterogeneity and thus relaxes three restrictive assumptions that have featured prominently in the past. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): International financial markets, International topics, Labour markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, F, F3, I, I3, I31
International Spillovers of Large-Scale Asset Purchases Staff Working Paper 2015-2 Sami Alpanda, Serdar Kabaca This paper evaluates the international spillover effects of large-scale asset purchases (LSAPs) using a two-country dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model with nominal and real rigidities, and portfolio balance effects. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, International topics, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, F, F4, F41