Staff discussion papers
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Has the Inclusion of Forward-Looking Statements in Monetary Policy Communications Made the Bank of Canada More Transparent?
To investigate the extent to which the transparency of the Bank of Canada's monetary policy has improved, the authors examine empirically – over the period 30 October 2000 to 31 May 2007 – the reaction of Canadian financial markets to official Bank communications, and in particular their reaction to the recent inclusion of forward-looking policy-rate guidance in these communications. -
Losses from Simulated Defaults in Canada's Large Value Transfer System
The Large Value Transfer System (LVTS) loss-sharing mechanism was designed to ensure that, in the event of a one-participant default, the collateral pledged by direct members of the system would be sufficient to cover the largest possible net debit position of a defaulting participant. However, the situation may not hold if the indirect effects of the defaults are taken into consideration, or if two participants default during the same payment cycle. -
Liquidity, Risk, and Return: Specifying an Objective Function for the Management of Foreign Reserves
An objective function is a key component of a strategic portfolio management model used to determine the optimal allocations of assets and, possibly, their associated liabilities over some investment horizon. -
Nowcasting the Global Economy
Forecasts of global economic activity and inflation are important inputs when conducting monetary policy in small open economies such as Canada. As part of the Bank of Canada's broad agenda to augment its short-term forecasting tools, the author constructs simple mixed-frequency forecasting equations for quarterly global output, imports, and inflation using the monthly global Purchasing Managers Index (PMI). -
Evaluating the Effect of the Bank of Canada's Conditional Commitment Policy
The author evaluates the effect of the Bank of Canada's conditional commitment regarding the target overnight rate on longer-term market interest rates by taking into account the relationship between interest rates, inflation, and unemployment rates. -
Asset-Liability Management: An Overview
Relevant literature on asset-liability management (ALM) is reviewed and different ALM approaches are discussed that may be of interest to the Bank of Canada for the purpose of modelling the Exchange Fund Account (EFA). -
Inventories in ToTEM
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. -
Inventories, Stockouts, and ToTEM
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. -
Statistical Confidence Intervals for the Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey
While a number of central banks publish their own business conditions indicators that rely on non-random sampling, knowledge about their statistical accuracy has been limited.