February 24, 2015
Inflation targets
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February 19, 2015
Inflation, Expectations and Monetary Policy
Deputy Governor Agathe Côté discusses the importance of inflation expectations for monetary policy and a new survey the Bank of Canada created to monitor household expectations. -
February 10, 2015
Minding the Labour Gap
Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins discusses the state of the labour market, the impact of lower oil prices on Canada’s economic outlook and the importance of both for monetary policy. -
Targeting Inflation from Below - How Do Inflation Expectations Behave?
Inflation targeting (IT) had originally been introduced as a device to bring inflation down and stabilize it at low levels. Given the current environment of persistently weak inflation in many advanced economies, IT central banks must now bring inflation up to target. -
Central Bank Communications Before, During and After the Crisis: From Open-Market Operations to Open-Mouth Policy
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. -
August 16, 2012
Measurement Bias in the Canadian Consumer Price Index: An Update
The consumer price index (CPI) is the most commonly used measure to track changes in the overall level of prices. Since it departs from a true cost-of-living index, the CPI is subject to four types of measurement bias—commodity substitution, outlet substitution, new goods and quality adjustment. The author updates previous Bank of Canada estimates of measurement bias in the Canadian CPI by examining these four sources of potential bias. He finds the total measurement bias over the 2005–11 period to be about 0.5 percentage point per year, consistent with the Bank’s earlier findings. Slightly more than half of this bias is caused by the fixed nature of the CPI basket of goods and services. -
May 17, 2012
Inflation Targeting: The Recent International Experience
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 […] -
August 19, 2010
Monetary Policy and the Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates
The recent financial crisis and global economic slowdown have renewed interest in monetary policy options when the policy interest rate is at or near zero. -
August 19, 2010
Price-Level Targeting and Relative-Price Shocks
Stephen Murchison reviews the findings of recent Bank of Canada research on the relative merits of inflation targeting and price-level targeting (PLT) for a small open economy, such as Canada's, that is susceptible to large and persistent terms-of-trade shocks. -
August 19, 2010
Conference Summary: New Frontiers in Monetary Policy Design
Although the current inflation-targeting regime has served Canadians well, sound public policy demands the continuous exploration of possible improvements in the monetary policy framework.