May 17, 2012 Inflation Targeting: The Recent International Experience Bank of Canada Review - Spring 2012 Robert Lavigne, Rhys R. Mendes, Subrata Sarker In the years since the 2006 renewal of Canada’s inflation-control agreement, monetary policy regimes have faced significant shocks, including the global economic and financial crisis. This article reviews the recent experience with inflation targeting, including the debate about the appropriate role of monetary policy in maintaining financial stability. In the aftermath of the crisis, both […] Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Credibility, Financial stability, Inflation targets, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, E52, E58
Time-Varying Effects of Oil Supply Shocks on the U.S. Economy Staff Working Paper 2012-2 Christiane Baumeister, Gert Peersman We use vector autoregressions with drifting coefficients and stochastic volatility to investigate how the dynamic effects of oil supply shocks on the U.S. economy have changed over time. We find a substantial decline in the short-run price elasticity of oil demand since the mid-eighties. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32, Q, Q4, Q43
The Role of Time-Varying Price Elasticities in Accounting for Volatility Changes in the Crude Oil Market Staff Working Paper 2011-28 Christiane Baumeister, Gert Peersman There has been a systematic increase in the volatility of the real price of crude oil since 1986, followed by a decline in the volatility of oil production since the early 1990s. We explore reasons for this evolution. We show that a likely explanation of this empirical fact is that both the short-run price elasticities of oil demand and of oil supply have declined considerably since the second half of the 1980s. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32, Q, Q4, Q43
Money and Price Posting under Private Information Staff Working Paper 2011-22 Mei Dong, Janet Hua Jiang We study price posting with undirected search in a search-theoretic monetary model with divisible money and divisible goods. Ex ante homogeneous buyers experience match specific preference shocks in bilateral trades. The shocks follow a continuous distribution and the realization of the shocks is private information. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): D, D8, D82, D83, E, E3, E31
The Behaviour of Consumer Prices Across Provinces Staff Discussion Paper 2011-2 Gordon Wilkinson Measures of core inflation enable a central bank to distinguish price movements that are transitory and generated by non-monetary events from those that are more permanent and related to prior monetary policy decisions. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31
Inventories, Markups and Real Rigidities in Sticky Price Models of the Canadian Economy Staff Working Paper 2011-9 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Virgiliu Midrigan Recent New Keynesian models of macroeconomy view nominal cost rigidities, rather than nominal price rigidities, as the key feature that accounts for the observed persistence in output and inflation. Kryvtsov and Midrigan (2010a,b) reassess these conclusions by combining a theory based on nominal rigidities and storable goods with direct evidence on inventories for the U.S. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, F, F1, F12
Semi-Structural Models for Inflation Forecasting Staff Working Paper 2010-34 Maral Kichian, Rumler Fabio, Paul Corrigan We propose alternative single-equation semi-structural models for forecasting inflation in Canada, whereby structural New Keynesian models are combined with time-series features in the data. Several marginal cost measures are used, including one that in addition to unit labour cost also integrates relative price shocks known to play an important role in open-economies. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): C, C1, C13, C5, C53, E, E3, E31
Inventories in ToTEM Staff Discussion Paper 2010-9 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Yang Zhang ToTEM – the Bank of Canada’s principal projection and policy-analysis model for the Canadian economy – is extended to include inventories. In the model, firms accumulate inventories of finished goods for their role in facilitating the demand for goods. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32
Inventories, Stockouts, and ToTEM Staff Discussion Paper 2010-8 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Yang Zhang Inventory investment is an important component of the Canadian business cycle. Despite its small average size – less than 1 per cent of output – it exhibits volatile procyclical fluctuations, accounting for almost one-third of output variance. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32
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