Pulse check: Measuring underlying inflation and its drivers Staff analytical note 2025-29 Luis Uzeda This note presents PULSE, a new measure of underlying inflation in Canada based on a dynamic factor model estimated on disaggregated inflation data. PULSE captures the persistent component of inflation and decomposes it into broad-based and sector-specific inflationary pressures. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes JEL Code(s): C, C5, C55, E, E3, E31, E5, E52 Research Theme(s): Financial system, Financial system regulation and oversight, Models and tools, Econometric, statistical and computational methods, Monetary policy, Inflation dynamics and pressures
Do Firms’ Sales Expectations Hit the Mark? Evidence from the Business Leaders’ Pulse Staff discussion paper 2025-15 Owen Gaboury, Farrukh Suvankulov, Mathieu Utting We analyze Canadian data from the Bank of Canada’s Business Leaders’ Pulse, examining firms’ sales growth expectations. We find that expected growth predicts outcomes, uncertainty influences forecast errors and revisions, and firms with weak past performance anticipate and experience weaker future growth. These results highlight the survey’s value for understanding business expectations. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers JEL Code(s): C, C8, C83, D, D2, D22 Research Theme(s): Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework and transmission, Real economy and forecasting
AI Agents for Cash Management in Payment Systems Staff working paper 2025-35 Iñaki Aldasoro, Ajit Desai Can artificial intelligence (AI) think and act like a cash manager? In this paper we explore how generative AI agents can help manage liquidity, prioritize payments and optimize efficiency in real-time gross settlement systems. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): A, A1, A12, C, C7, D, D8, D83, E, E4, E42, E5, E58 Research Theme(s): Financial system, Financial system regulation and oversight, Money and payments, Digital assets and fintech, Payment and financial market infrastructures, Structural challenges, Digitalization and productivity
Perceived interconnections between Canadian banks and non-bank financial intermediaries under stress Staff analytical note 2025-26 Javier Ojea Ferreiro I study the links between Canadian banks and non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs) by observing co-movements in stock prices. Perceived interconnections increased before the COVID-19 pandemic but have since stabilized, with the strongest ties seen between large banks and NBFIs. The secured credit line extended to Home Trust, a non-bank mortgage lender that experienced severe funding stress in 2017, significantly reduced banks' risk exposure to NBFIs during this episode. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes JEL Code(s): C, C5, C58, G, G0, G01, G2, G21, G23, G3, G32 Research Theme(s): Financial system, Financial institutions and intermediation, Financial stability and systemic risk
A Market-Based Approach to Reverse Stress Testing the Financial System Staff working paper 2025-32 Javier Ojea Ferreiro This article examines what market conditions lead to extreme losses in global financial systems. Using a reverse stress testing approach, it introduces two measures of systemic risk by starting from the tail losses and working backward to identify the events most closely associated with them. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): C, C0, C02, C3, C32, C5, C58, G, G2, G21 Research Theme(s): Financial markets and funds management, Market functioning, Financial system, Financial institutions and intermediation, Financial stability and systemic risk
Net Send Limits in the Lynx Payment System: Usage and Implications Staff discussion paper 2025-13 Virgilio B Pasin, Anna Wyllie We study how participants in the Lynx payment system use the net send limit (NSL) tool to control their intraday payment outflow levels. Our results show that participants typically adopt a “set it and forget it” approach to scheduling NSLs and sometimes have distinct intraday NSL adjustment behaviours. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers JEL Code(s): C, C1, C10, D, D8, D82, E, E4, E42, E5, E58, G, G2, G21, G4, G41 Research Theme(s): Financial system, Financial institutions and intermediation, Money and payments, Payment and financial market infrastructures
Simulating the Resilience of the Canadian Banking Sector Under Stress: An Update of the Bank of Canada’s Top-Down Solvency Assessment Tool Technical report No. 128 Omar Abdelrahman, David Xiao Chen, Cameron MacDonald, Adi Mordel, Guillaume Ouellet Leblanc We present a technical description of the Top-Down Solvency Assessment (TDSA) tool. As a solvency stress-testing tool, TDSA is used to assess the banking sector’s capital resilience to hypothetical future risk scenarios. Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, C5, C52, C53, G, G1, G17, G2, G21, G28 Research Theme(s): Financial system, Financial institutions and intermediation, Financial stability and systemic risk, Models and tools, Economic models
Financial Shocks and the Output Growth Distribution Staff working paper 2025-25 Francois-Michel Boire, Thibaut Duprey, Alexander Ueberfeldt This paper studies how financial shocks shape the distribution of output growth by introducing a quantile-augmented vector autoregression (QAVAR), which integrates quantile regressions into a structural VAR framework. The QAVAR preserves standard shock identification while delivering flexible, nonparametric forecasts of conditional moments and tail risk measures for gross domestic product. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, C5, C53, E, E3, E32, E4, E44, G, G0, G01 Research Theme(s): Financial system, Financial stability and systemic risk, Models and tools, Econometric, statistical and computational methods, Monetary policy, Real economy and forecasting
Monetary Policy Transmission with Endogenous Central Bank Responses in TANK Staff working paper 2025-21 Lilia Maliar, Chris Naubert We study how the transmission of monetary policy innovations is affected by the endogenous response of the central bank to macroeconomic aggregates in a two-agent New Keynesian model. We focus on how the stance of monetary policy and the fraction of savers in the economy affect transmission. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): C, C6, C61, C62, C63, E, E3, E31, E5, E52 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Economic models, Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework and transmission
The Dynamic Canadian Debt Strategy Model Technical report No. 127 Nicolas Audet, Joe Ning, Adam Epp, Jeffrey Gao We present a dynamic debt strategy model framework designed to assist sovereign debt portfolio managers in choosing an optimal debt issuance strategy. The main innovation of this framework is the introduction of dynamic issuance strategies, which allow issuance decisions to vary over time based on the model’s simulated state variables. Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports JEL Code(s): C, C6, C61, G, G1, G11, G17, H, H6, H63, H68 Research Theme(s): Financial markets and funds management, Funds management, Models and tools, Econometric, statistical and computational methods