Expectations and Monetary Policy: Experimental Evidence Staff Working Paper 2013-44 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Luba Petersen The effectiveness of monetary policy depends, to a large extent, on market expectations of its future actions. In a standard New Keynesian business-cycle model with rational expectations, systematic monetary policy reduces the variance of inflation and the output gap by at least two-thirds. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary policy implementation, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): C, C9, D, D8, D84, E, E3, E5, E52
High-Frequency Real Economic Activity Indicator for Canada Staff Working Paper 2013-42 Gitanjali Kumar I construct a weekly measure of real economic activity in Canada. Based on the work of Aruoba et al. (2009), the indicator is extracted as an unobserved component underlying the co-movement of four monthly observed real macroeconomic variables - employment, manufacturing sales, retail sales and GDP. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C3, C38, E, E3, E32
The Common Component of CPI: An Alternative Measure of Underlying Inflation for Canada Staff Working Paper 2013-35 Mikael Khan, Louis Morel, Patrick Sabourin In this paper, the authors propose a measure of underlying inflation for Canada obtained from estimating a monthly factor model on individual components of the CPI. This measure, labelled the common component of CPI, has intuitive appeal and a number of interesting features. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): C, C1, E, E3, E31, E32, E5, E52, E58
Which Parametric Model for Conditional Skewness? Staff Working Paper 2013-32 Bruno Feunou, Mohammad R. Jahan-Parvar, Roméo Tedongap This paper addresses an existing gap in the developing literature on conditional skewness. We develop a simple procedure to evaluate parametric conditional skewness models. This procedure is based on regressing the realized skewness measures on model-implied conditional skewness values. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, C5, C51, G, G1, G12, G15
Volatility and Liquidity Costs Staff Working Paper 2013-29 Selma Chaker Observed high-frequency prices are contaminated with liquidity costs or market microstructure noise. Using such data, we derive a new asset return variance estimator inspired by the market microstructure literature to explicitly model the noise and remove it from observed returns before estimating their variance. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): C, C1, C14, C5, C51, C58, G, G2, G20
Forecasting the Real Price of Oil in a Changing World: A Forecast Combination Approach Staff Working Paper 2013-28 Christiane Baumeister, Lutz Kilian The U.S. Energy Information Administration regularly publishes short-term forecasts of the price of crude oil. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, E, E3, E32, Q, Q4, Q43
Are Product Spreads Useful for Forecasting? An Empirical Evaluation of the Verleger Hypothesis Staff Working Paper 2013-25 Christiane Baumeister, Lutz Kilian, Xiaoqing Zhou Notwithstanding a resurgence in research on out-of-sample forecasts of the price of oil in recent years, there is one important approach to forecasting the real price of oil which has not been studied systematically to date. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, G, G1, G15, Q, Q4, Q43
August 15, 2013 CSI: A Model for Tracking Short-Term Growth in Canadian Real GDP Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2013 André Binette, Jae Chang Canada’s Short-Term Indicator (CSI) is a new model that exploits the information content of 32 indicators to produce daily updates to forecasts of quarterly real GDP growth. The model is a data-intensive, judgment-free approach to short-term forecasting. While CSI’s forecasts at the start of the quarter are not very accurate, the model’s accuracy increases appreciably as more information becomes available. CSI is the latest addition to a wide range of models and information sources that the Bank of Canada uses, combined with expert judgment, to produce its short-term forecasts. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, E, E1, E17, E3, E37
August 15, 2013 The Accuracy of Short-Term Forecast Combinations Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2013 Eleonora Granziera, Corinne Luu, Pierre St-Amant This article examines whether combining forecasts of real GDP from different models can improve forecast accuracy and considers which model-combination methods provide the best performance. In line with previous literature, the authors find that combining forecasts generally improves forecast accuracy relative to various benchmarks. Unlike several previous studies, however, they find that, rather than assigning equal weights to each model, unequal weighting based on the past forecast performance of models tends to improve accuracy when forecasts across models are substantially different. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C5, C52, C53, E, E3, E37
August 15, 2013 Big Data Analysis: The Next Frontier Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2013 Nii Ayi Armah The formulation of monetary policy at the Bank of Canada relies on the analysis of a broad set of economic information. Greater availability of immediate and detailed information would improve real-time economic decision making. Technological advances have provided an opportunity to exploit “big data” - the vast amount of digital data from business transactions, social media and networked computers. Big data can be a complement to traditional information sources, offering fresh insight for the monitoring of economic activity and inflation. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Monetary and financial indicators JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, C6, C63, C8, C80