The Transmission of Shocks to the Chinese Economy in a Global Context: A Model-Based Approach Staff Working Paper 2010-17 Jeannine Bailliu, Patrick Blagrave To better understand the dynamics of the Chinese economy and its interaction with the global economy, the authors incorporate China into an existing model for the G-3 economies (i.e., the United States, the euro area, and Japan), paying particular attention to modelling the exchange rate and monetary policy in China. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models, Exchange rate regimes, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E5, E52, F, F4, F41
The Fisher BCPI: The Bank of Canada’s New Commodity Price Index Staff Discussion Paper 2010-6 Ilan Kolet, Ryan Macdonald The prices of commodities produced in Canada have important implications for the performance of the Canadian economy and the conduct of monetary policy. The authors explain an important change to the methodology used to construct the Bank of Canada commodity price index (BCPI). Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): C, C1, E, E3
Le pouvoir de prévision des indices PMI Staff Discussion Paper 2010-3 Claudia Godbout, Jocelyn Jacob The forecast of world economic growth plays a key role in the conduct of Canadian monetary policy. In this context, the authors study the usefulness of the monthly Purchasing Managers’ Indexes (PMIs) in predicting short-term real GDP growth in the euro area, Japan, the United Kingdom, and China, as well as in the world economy. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, E37, F, F4, F47
On the Advantages of Disaggregated Data: Insights from Forecasting the U.S. Economy in a Data-Rich Environment Staff Working Paper 2010-10 Nikita Perevalov, Philipp Maier The good forecasting performance of factor models has been well documented in the literature. While many studies focus on a very limited set of variables (typically GDP and inflation), this study evaluates forecasting performance at disaggregated levels to examine the source of the improved forecasting accuracy, relative to a simple autoregressive model. We use the latest revision of over 100 U.S. time series over the period 1974-2009 (monthly and quarterly data). Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C50, C53, E, E3, E37, E4, E47
Introducing the Bank of Canada's Projection Model for the Global Economy Technical Report No. 99 Jeannine Bailliu, Patrick Blagrave, James Rossiter To complement its existing set of tools to analyze and forecast developments in the global economy, the Bank of Canada recently developed a version of the Global Projection Model (GPM) jointly with staff at the International Monetary Fund. Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C6, C68, E, E2, E27, E3, E37, F, F0, F01
Price Level Targeting: What Is the Right Price? Staff Working Paper 2010-8 Malik Shukayev, Alexander Ueberfeldt Various papers have suggested that Price-Level targeting is a welfare improving policy relative to Inflation targeting. From a practical standpoint, this raises an important yet unanswered question: What is the optimal price index to target? Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E5, E52
Labour Reallocation, Relative Prices and Productivity Staff Working Paper 2010-2 Shutao Cao, Danny Leung This paper documents the rate at which labour flows between industries and between firms within industries using the most recent data available. It examines the determinants of these flows and their relationship with the productivity growth. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Labour markets, Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D2, D23, E, E3, E32, J, J6
Real and Nominal Frictions within the Firm: How Lumpy Investment Matters for Price Adjustment Staff Working Paper 2009-36 Michael K. Johnston Real rigidities are an important feature of modern sticky price models and are policy-relevant because of their welfare consequences, but cannot be structurally identified from time series. I evaluate the plausibility of capital specificity as a source of real rigidities using a two-dimensional generalized (s,S) model calibrated to micro evidence. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E1, E12, E2, E22, E3, E31
Estimating DSGE-Model-Consistent Trends for Use in Forecasting Staff Working Paper 2009-35 Jean-Philippe Cayen, Marc-André Gosselin, Sharon Kozicki The workhorse DSGE model used for monetary policy evaluation is designed to capture business cycle fluctuations in an optimization-based format. It is commonplace to log-linearize models and express them with variables in deviation-from-steady-state format. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, E, E3, E5, E52
Risk Premium Shocks and the Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates Staff Working Paper 2009-27 Robert Amano, Malik Shukayev There appears to be a disconnect between the importance of the zero bound on nominal interest rates in the real-world and predictions from quantitative DSGE models. Recent economic events have reinforced the relevance of the zero bound for monetary policy whereas quantitative models suggest that the zero bound does not constrain (optimal) monetary policy. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E5, E52