E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
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November 19, 2015
A Survey of Consumer Expectations for Canada
The Bank of Canada recently launched a quarterly survey to measure the expectations of Canadian households: the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations (CSCE). The data collected provide comprehensive information about consumer expectations for and uncertainty about inflation, the labour market and household finance. This article describes the CSCE and illustrates its potential to offer rich information about Canadian consumers for researchers and policy-makers. -
November 19, 2015
Measuring Durable Goods and Housing Prices in the CPI: An Empirical Assessment
While the CPI is the most commonly used measure to track inflation, it is not fully consistent with a true cost-of-living index (COLI). Although the official treatment of durable goods and housing in the CPI represents an acceptable compromise in the current environment of low and stable inflation, Sabourin and Duguay suggest that it would be worthwhile to consider treating housing and durables in the same way and bringing the actual CPI closer to a COLI. This could be accomplished by employing an enhanced user-cost approach to calculate the imputed cost of the services provided by the use of durable goods or housing. -
November 19, 2015
The Effect of Regulatory Changes on Monetary Policy Implementation Frameworks
This article provides an analysis of some recent banking regulatory initiatives that are likely to influence the activities of financial intermediaries and the effectiveness of central bank monetary policy implementation frameworks. Although the effects of individual regulations can be anticipated in most cases, the combined regulatory impact is not yet clear. Central banks should, however, be able to accommodate the effects of the emerging regulatory environment within their existing policy implementation frameworks. -
November 19, 2015
Recent Enhancements to the Management of Canada’s Foreign Exchange Reserves
As the size and complexity of the foreign exchange reserves have grown over the years, enhancements to the management framework needed to keep pace. This is a common theme for most reserve managers around the world. In Canada, the enhancements focused on governance, portfolio management, risk measurement and risk management. This article briefly describes these enhancements, why they were implemented and some of the lessons learned along the way. -
Reputational Risk Management in Central Banks
This paper discusses reputational risk in the context of central banking and explains why it matters to central banks. It begins with a general discussion of reputational risk within the broader framework of risk management. -
Forward Guidance at the Effective Lower Bound: International Experience
Forward guidance is one of the policy tools that a central bank can implement if it seeks to provide additional monetary stimulus when it is operating at the effective lower bound (ELB) on interest rates. It became more widely used during and after the global financial crisis. -
Quantitative Easing as a Policy Tool Under the Effective Lower Bound
This paper summarizes the international evidence on the performance of quantitative easing (QE) as a monetary policy tool when conventional policy rates are constrained by the effective lower bound (ELB). A large body of evidence suggests that expanding the central bank’s balance sheet through large-scale asset purchases can provide effective stimulus under the ELB. -
Monetary Policy and Financial Stability: Cross-Country Evidence
Central banks may face challenges in achieving their price stability goals when financial stability risks are present. There is, however, considerable heterogeneity among central banks with respect to how they manage these potential trade-offs. -
Credit Conditions and Consumption, House Prices and Debt: What Makes Canada Different?
There is widespread agreement that, in the United States, higher house prices raise consumption via collateral or possibly wealth effects. The presence of similar channels in Canada would have important implications for monetary policy transmission.