International topics
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Forecasting the Price of Oil
We address some of the key questions that arise in forecasting the price of crude oil. What do applied forecasters need to know about the choice of sample period and about the tradeoffs between alternative oil price series and model specifications? -
May 19, 2011
Unconventional Monetary Policy: The International Experience with Central Bank Asset Purchases
As part of their policy response to the financial crisis of 2007–09, central banks introduced numerous unprecedented monetary policy measures to provide monetary easing. This article defines and documents these measures, focusing on central bank asset purchases and their impact on central bank balance sheets. It then discusses the challenges of identifying the effects of these measures and explores possible exit strategies. The potential costs of these policies are also analyzed, as well as the broader implications for monetary policy frameworks. -
Mixed Frequency Forecasts for Chinese GDP
We evaluate different approaches for using monthly indicators to predict Chinese GDP for the current and the next quarter (‘nowcasts’ and ‘forecasts’, respectively). We use three types of mixed-frequency models, one based on an economic activity indicator (Liu et al., 2007), one based on averaging over indicator models (Stock and Watson, 2004), and a static factor model (Stock and Watson, 2002). -
Sovereign Default Risk Premia, Fiscal Limits and Fiscal Policy
We develop a closed economy model to study the interactions among sovereign risk premia, fiscal limits, and fiscal policy. The stochastic fiscal limits, which measure the ability and willingness of the government to service its debt, arise endogenously from a dynamic Laffer curve. -
The Impact of the Global Business Cycle on Small Open Economies: A FAVAR Approach for Canada
Building on the growing evidence on the importance of large data sets for empirical macroeconomic modeling, we use a factor-augmented VAR (FAVAR) model with more than 260 series for 20 OECD countries to analyze how global developments affect the Canadian economy. -
Financial Spillovers Across Countries: The Case of Canada and the United States
The authors investigate financial spillovers across countries with an emphasis on the effect of shocks to financial conditions in the United States on financial conditions and economic activity in Canada. These questions are addressed within a global vector autoregression model. -
The Propagation of U.S. Shocks to Canada: Understanding the Role of Real-Financial Linkages
This paper examines the transmission of U.S. real and financial shocks to Canada and, in particular, the role of financial frictions in affecting the transmission of these shocks. These questions are addressed within the Bank of Canada's Global Economy Model (de Resende et al. forthcoming), a dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model with an active banking sector and a detailed role for financial frictions. -
'Lean' versus 'Rich' Data Sets: Forecasting during the Great Moderation and the Great Recession
We evaluate forecasts for the euro area in data-rich and ‘data-lean' environments by comparing three different approaches: a simple PMI model based on Purchasing Managers' Indices (PMIs), a dynamic factor model with euro area data, and a dynamic factor model with data from the euro plus data from national economies (pseudo-real time data). -
Bank Competition and International Financial Integration: Evidence Using a New Index
This paper finds a strong empirical link between domestic banking sector competitiveness and de facto international integration. De-facto international integration is measured through a new index of financial integration, which measures, for deviations from covered interest parity, the size of no-arbitrage bands and the speed of arbitrage outside the no-arbitrage band.