Technology Shocks, Labour Mobility and Aggregate Fluctuations Staff Working Paper 2014-4 Daniela Hauser We provide evidence regarding the dynamic behaviour of net labour flows across U.S. states in response to a positive technology shock. Technology shocks are identified as disturbances that increase relative state productivity in the long run for 226 state pairs, encompassing 80 per cent of labour flows across U.S. states in the 1976 - 2008 period. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E3, E32, J, J6, J61
Search-for-Yield in Canadian Fixed-Income Mutual Funds and Monetary Policy Staff Working Paper 2014-3 Sermin Gungor, Jesus Sierra This paper investigates the effects of monetary policy on the risk-taking behavior of fixed-income mutual funds in Canada. We consider different measures of the stance of monetary policy and investigate active variation in mutual funds’ risk exposure in response to monetary policy. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, G, G2, G23
Household Risk Management and Actual Mortgage Choice in the Euro Area Staff Working Paper 2014-1 Michael Ehrmann, Michael Ziegelmeyer Mortgages constitute the largest part of household debt. An essential choice when taking out a mortgage is between fixed-interest-rate mortgages (FRMs) and adjustable-interest-rate mortgages (ARMs). However, so far, no comprehensive cross‐country study has analyzed what determines household demand for mortgage types, a task that this paper takes up using new data for the euro area. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, E, E4, E43, E5, E52, G, G2, G21
Cash Management and Payment Choices: A Simulation Model with International Comparisons Staff Working Paper 2013-53 Carlos Arango, Yassine Bouhdaoui, David Bounie, Martina Eschelbach, Lola Hernández Despite various payment innovations, today, cash is still heavily used to pay for low-value purchases. This paper develops a simulation model to test whether standard implications of the theory on cash management and payment choices can explain the use of payment instruments by transaction size. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Financial services, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C6, C61, E, E4, E41, E47
Do Oil Price Increases Cause Higher Food Prices? Staff Working Paper 2013-52 Christiane Baumeister, Lutz Kilian U.S. retail food price increases in recent years may seem large in nominal terms, but after adjusting for inflation have been quite modest even after the change in U.S. biofuel policies in 2006. In contrast, increases in the real prices of corn, soybeans, wheat and rice received by U.S. farmers have been more substantial and can be linked in part to increases in the real price of oil. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, Q, Q1, Q11, Q4, Q42, Q43
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
Perceived Inflation Persistence Staff Working Paper 2013-43 Monica Jain The Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) has had vast influence on research related to better understanding expectation formation and the behaviour of macroeconomic agents. Inflation expectations, in particular, have received a great deal of attention, since they play a crucial role in determining real interest rates, the expectations-augmented Phillips curve and monetary policy. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E37
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
Central Bank Communications Before, During and After the Crisis: From Open-Market Operations to Open-Mouth Policy Staff Working Paper 2013-41 Ianthi Vayid The days when secrecy and opacity were the bywords of central banking are gone. The advent of inflation targeting in the early 1990s acted as the catalyst for enhanced transparency and communications in the conduct of monetary policy. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Central bank research, Credibility, Financial stability, Inflation targets, Monetary policy framework, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, E58
Unemployment Fluctuations in a Small Open-Economy Model with Segmented Labour Markets: The Case of Canada Staff Working Paper 2013-40 Yahong Zhang The recent financial crisis and subsequent recession have spurred great interest in the sources of unemployment fluctuations. Previous studies predominantly assume a single economy-wide labour market, and therefore abstract from differences across sectorspecific labour markets in the economy. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E44, J, J6