Should the Central Bank Issue E-money? Staff Working Paper 2018-58 Charles M. Kahn, Francisco Rivadeneyra, Tsz-Nga Wong Should a central bank take over the provision of e-money, a circulable electronic liability? We discuss how e-money technology changes the tradeoff between public and private provision, and the tradeoff between e-money and a central bank's existing liabilities like bank notes and reserves. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Financial services, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, E5, E51, E58
Fundamental Drivers of Existing Home Sales in Canada Staff Discussion Paper 2018-16 Taylor Webley Existing home sales’ share of Canada’s economic pie has been rising in recent years, and variation around this trend has resulted in outsized contributions to changes in real gross domestic product (GDP). In this context, we use a cointegration framework to estimate the level of resale activity across the Canadian provinces that is supported by fundamentals—namely, full-time employment, housing affordability and migration flows—to help look through the volatility. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Economic models, Housing JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, C23, E, E2, E27, R, R2, R21
GDP by Industry in Real Time: Are Revisions Well Behaved? Staff Analytical Note 2018-40 Patrick Rizzetto The monthly data for real gross domestic product (GDP) by industry are used extensively in real time both to ground the Bank of Canada’s monitoring of economic activity and in the Bank’s nowcasting tools, making these data one of the most important high-frequency time series for Canadian nowcasting. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Central bank research, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, C8, C82, E, E0, E01
The Impact of Surprising Monetary Policy Announcements on Exchange Rate Volatility Staff Analytical Note 2018-39 Adam Albogatchiev, Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Jabir Sandhu, Reginald Xie We identify a few Bank of Canada press releases that had the largest immediate impact on the exchange rate market. We find that volatility increases after these releases, but the effect is short-lived and mostly dissipates after the first hour, on average. Beyond the first hour, the size of the effect is similar to what we observe for other economic releases, such as those for inflation or economic growth data. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Exchange rates, Financial markets, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, F, F3, F31, G, G1, G10, G12, G14, G15
Does US or Canadian Macro News Drive Canadian Bond Yields? Staff Analytical Note 2018-38 Bruno Feunou, Rodrigo Sekkel, Morvan Nongni-Donfack We show that a large share of low-frequency (quarterly) movements in Canadian government bond yields can be explained by macroeconomic news, even though high-frequency (daily) changes are driven by other shocks. Furthermore, we show that US macro news—not domestic news— explains most of the quarterly variation in Canadian bond yields. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial markets, International topics, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, E, E4, E43
Markets Look Beyond the Headline Staff Analytical Note 2018-37 Bruno Feunou, James Kyeong, Raisa Leiderman Many reports and analyses interpret the release of new economic data based on the headline surprise—for instance, total inflation, real GDP growth and the unemployment rate. However, we find that headline news alone cannot adequately explain the responses of market prices to new information. Rather, market prices react more strongly, on average, to non-headline news such as the composition of GDP growth, quality of jobs created and revisions to past data. Thus, tracking the impact of non-headline information released on the news day is crucial in analyzing how markets interpret and react to new economic data. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Asset pricing, Exchange rates, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, G, G1, G12, G14
An Alternative Estimate of Canadian Potential Output: The Multivariate State-Space Framework Staff Discussion Paper 2018-14 Lise Pichette, Maria Bernier, Marie-Noëlle Robitaille In this paper, we extend the state-space methodology proposed by Blagrave et al. (2015) and decompose Canadian potential output into trend labour productivity and trend labour input. As in Blagrave et al. (2015), we include output growth and inflation expectations from consensus forecasts to help refine our estimates. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Economic models, Potential output JEL Code(s): C, C5, E, E0, E5
Modelling the Macrofinancial Effects of a House Price Correction in Canada Staff Analytical Note 2018-36 Thibaut Duprey, Xuezhi Liu, Cameron MacDonald, Maarten van Oordt, Sofia Priazhkina, Xiangjin Shen, Joshua Slive We use a suite of risk-assessment models to examine the possible impact of a hypothetical house price correction, centred in the Toronto and Vancouver areas. We also assume financial stress significantly amplifies the macroeconomic impact of the house price decline. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial stability, Housing JEL Code(s): E, E2, E27, E3, E37, E4, E44, G, G2, G21
The Impact of Recent Policy Changes on the Canadian Mortgage Market Staff Analytical Note 2018-35 Olga Bilyk, Maria teNyenhuis Recent policy changes are having a clear impact on the mortgage market. The number of new, highly indebted borrowers has fallen, and overall mortgage activity has slowed significantly. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Financial institutions, Interest rates, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): D, D1, E, E4, G, G2, G21, G28
The Framework for Risk Identification and Assessment Technical Report No. 113 Cameron MacDonald, Virginie Traclet Risk assessment models are an important component of the Bank’s analytical tool kit for assessing the resilience of the financial system. We describe the Framework for Risk Identification and Assessment (FRIDA), a suite of models developed at the Bank of Canada to quantify the impact of financial stability risks to the broader economy and a range of financial system participants (households, businesses and banks). Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Economic models, Financial institutions, Financial stability, Housing JEL Code(s): C, C3, C5, C6, C7, D, D1, E, E0, E00, E2, E27, E3, E37, E4, E47, G, G0, G2, G21