Business fluctuations and cycles
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The Case of Serial Disappointment
Similar to those of other forecasters, the Bank of Canada’s forecasts of global GDP growth have shown persistent negative errors over the past five years. This is in contrast to the pre-crisis period, when errors were consistently positive as global GDP surprised to the upside. All major regions have contributed to the forecast errors observed since 2011, although the United States has been the most persistent source of notable errors. -
Housing Market Dynamics and Macroprudential Policy
We perform an analysis to determine how well the introduction of a countercyclical loanto- value (LTV) ratio can reduce household indebtedness and housing price fluctuations compared with a monetary policy rule augmented with house price inflation. -
June 15, 2016
The Canadian Economy: A Progress Report
Governor Stephen S. Poloz talks about the outlook for Canada’s economy and the adjustment to lower resource prices. -
What Are the Macroeconomic Effects of High-Frequency Uncertainty Shocks
This paper evaluates the effects of high-frequency uncertainty shocks on a set of low-frequency macroeconomic variables that are representative of the U.S. economy. Rather than estimating models at the same common low-frequency, we use recently developed econometric models, which allows us to deal with data of different sampling frequencies. -
April 26, 2016
A New Balance Point: Global Trade, Productivity and Economic Growth
Governor Stephen S. Poloz talks about slowing international trade growth and the implications for productivity and the global economy. -
March 30, 2016
Adjusting to the Fall in Commodity Prices: One Step at a Time
Deputy Governor Lynn Patterson discusses how the Canadian economy is adjusting to the fall in commodity prices. -
Dating Systemic Financial Stress Episodes in the EU Countries
This paper introduces a new methodology to date systemic financial stress events in a transparent, objective and reproducible way. The financial cycle is captured by a monthly country-specific financial stress index. -
Macroeconomic Uncertainty Through the Lens of Professional Forecasters
We analyze the evolution of macroeconomic uncertainty in the United States, based on the forecast errors of consensus survey forecasts of different economic indicators. Comprehensive information contained in the survey forecasts enables us to capture a real-time subjective measure of uncertainty in a simple framework. -
What Is Behind the Weakness in Global Investment?
The recovery in private business investment globally remains extremely weak more than seven years after the financial crisis. This paper contributes to the ongoing policy debate on the factors behind this weakness by analyzing the role of growth prospects and uncertainty in explaining developments in non-residential private business investment in large advanced economies since the crisis.