Estimating Canada’s Effective Lower Bound Staff Analytical Note 2015-2 Jonathan Witmer, Jing Yang In 2009, the Bank of Canada set its effective lower bound (ELB) at 25 basis points (bps). Given the recent experience of Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and the euro area with negative interest rates, we examine the economics of negative interest rates and suggest that cash storage costs are the source of a negative lower bound on interest rates. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Central bank research, Monetary policy framework, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): D, D5, D53, E, E4, E41, E43, E5, E58
November 19, 2015 A Survey of Consumer Expectations for Canada Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2015 Marc-André Gosselin, Mikael Khan The Bank of Canada recently launched a quarterly survey to measure the expectations of Canadian households: the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations (CSCE). The data collected provide comprehensive information about consumer expectations for and uncertainty about inflation, the labour market and household finance. This article describes the CSCE and illustrates its potential to offer rich information about Canadian consumers for researchers and policy-makers. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Central bank research, Housing, Inflation and prices, Interest rates, Labour markets, Monetary policy and uncertainty JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, D8, D84, E, E3, E31, E5, E52, J, J0
Heterogeneity in the Dynamic Effects of Uncertainty on Investment Staff Working Paper 2015-34 Sungje Byun, Soojin Jo How does aggregate profit uncertainty influence investment activity at the firm level? We propose a parsimonious adaptation of a factor-autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model to exploit information in a subindustry sales panel for an efficient and tractable estimation of aggregate volatility. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Domestic demand and components, Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, C23, D, D8, D80, E, E2, E22
Risk Sharing in the Presence of a Public Good Staff Working Paper 2015-27 Josef Schroth This paper studies an economy where agents can spend resources on consuming a private good and on funding a public good. There is asymmetric information regarding agents’ relative preference for private versus public good consumption. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Fiscal policy JEL Code(s): D, D8, D82, D86, E, E6, E62, H, H2, H21, H23, H7, H77
Managerial Compensation Duration and Stock Price Manipulation Staff Working Paper 2015-25 Josef Schroth I build a model of optimal managerial compensation where managers each have a privately observed propensity to manipulate short-term stock prices. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Labour markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): D, D8, D82, G, G1, G14, G3, G30, M, M1, M12
Exploring Differences in Household Debt Across Euro Area Countries and the United States Staff Working Paper 2015-16 Dimitris Christelis, Michael Ehrmann, Dimitris Georgarakos We use internationally comparable household-level data for ten euro area economies and the United States to investigate cross-country differences in debt holdings and the potential of debt overhang. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, E, E2, E21, G, G1, G11
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
Information, Risk Sharing and Incentives in Agency Problems Staff Working Paper 2015-7 Jia Xie This paper studies the use of information for incentives and risk sharing in agency problems. When the principal is risk neutral or the outcome is contractible, risk sharing is unnecessary or completely taken care of by a contract on the outcome. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models JEL Code(s): D, D8
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
International Spillovers of Policy Uncertainty Staff Working Paper 2014-57 Stefan Klößner, Rodrigo Sekkel Using the Baker et al. (2013) index of policy uncertainty for six developed countries, this paper estimates spillovers of policy uncertainty. We find that spillovers account for slightly more than one-fourth of the dynamics of policy uncertainty in these countries, with this share rising to one-half during the financial crisis. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C3, D, D8, D80, F, F4, F42