Staff working papers

• Responding to the First Era of Globalization: Canadian Trade Policy, 1870–1913

  Staff Working Paper 2018-42 Ian Keay, Patrick Alexander

  In this paper we document Canada’s trade policy response to late-nineteenth- and earlytwentieth-century globalization. We link newly digitized annual product-specific data on the value of Canadian imports and duties paid from 1870–1913 to establishment-specific production and location information drawn from the manuscripts of the 1871 industrial census.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, International topics, Trade integration JEL Code(s): F, F1, F13, F14, F4, F42, F6, F60, N, N7, N71

• Seeking Safety

  Staff Working Paper 2018-41 Toni Ahnert, Enrico Perotti

  The scale of safe assets suggests a structural demand for a safe wealth share beyond transaction and liquidity roles. We study how investors achieve a reference wealth level by combining self-insurance and contingent liquidation of investment. Intermediaries improve upon autarky, insuring investors with poor self-insurance and limiting liquidation.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions JEL Code(s): G, G2

• The Welfare Cost of Inflation Revisited: The Role of Financial Innovation and Household Heterogeneity

  Staff Working Paper 2018-40 Shutao Cao, Césaire Meh, José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, Yaz Terajima

  We document that, across households, the money consumption ratio increases with age and decreases with consumption, and that there has been a large increase in the money consumption ratio during the recent era of very low interest rates. We construct an overlapping generations (OLG) model of money holdings for transaction purposes subject to age (older households use more money), cohort (younger generations are exposed to better transaction technology), and time effects (nominal interest rates affect money holdings).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation: costs and benefits JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E4, E41

• Sluggish Forecasts

  Staff Working Paper 2018-39 Monica Jain

  Given the influence that agents’ expectations have on key macroeconomic variables, it is surprising that very few papers have tried to extrapolate agents’ “true” expectations directly from the data. This paper presents one such approach, starting with the hypothesis that there is sluggishness in inflation and real GDP growth forecasts.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E37