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Lending to business is central to economic growth because it supports investment by firms. Knowing how market participants view risk in the financial system can give the Bank of Canada information about future growth in business loans. In this note, we look at three market-based risk measures and find that sudden increases in the perception of risk in the Canadian banking system are associated with a weaker outlook for business loans and real gross domestic product.

Cash use for payments has been steadily decreasing in many countries, including Canada and Sweden. This might suggest an evolution toward a cashless society. But in Canada, cash in circulation relative to GDP has been stable for decades and has even increased in recent years. By contrast, the cash-to-GDP ratio in Sweden has been falling steadily. What has caused this difference? Are there lessons to be learned from comparing the Canadian and Swedish experiences?

There was an unusually large decline of bank notes in circulation in October 2018. Some have argued that this was due to the legalization of cannabis in Canada in mid-October.

We propose a macroeconomic model in which adverse selection in investment drives the amplification of macroeconomic fluctuations, in line with prominent roles played by the credit crunch and collapse of the asset-backed security market in the financial crisis.

Cash gives users a high level of privacy when making payments, but the use of cash to make payments is declining. People increasingly use debit cards, credit cards or other methods to pay.

The adoption of inflation targeting (IT) by central banks leads to an increase of 10 to 20 percent in measures of financial development, with a lag. We also find evidence that the financial sector benefits of IT adoption were higher for early-adopting central banks.

The stability of the Canadian financial system, as well as its ability to support the Canadian economy, depends on the ability of financial institutions to absorb and manage major shocks. This is especially true for large banks, which perform services essential to the Canadian economy.

This note provides an update on Bank of Canada staff’s assessment of the Canadian neutral rate. The neutral rate is the policy rate needed to keep output at its potential level and inflation at target once the effects of any cyclical shocks have dissipated. This medium- to long-run concept serves as a benchmark for gauging the degree of monetary stimulus provided by a given policy setting.

The countercyclical capital buffer is part of Basel III, the set of regulatory measures developed in response to the financial crisis of 2007–09. This study focuses on how time-varying capital buffers can address inefficiencies in economies with endogenous financial crises.

The market for cryptoassets has exploded in size in the 10 years since bitcoin was launched. The technology underlying cryptoassets, blockchain, has also been held up as a technology that promises to transform entire industries.