E31 - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

• Price Level Targeting in a Small Open Economy with Financial Frictions: Welfare Analysis

  Staff Working Paper 2008-40 Ali Dib, Caterina Mendicino, Yahong Zhang

  How important are the benefits of low price-level uncertainty? This paper explores the desirability of price-level path targeting in an estimated DSGE model fit to Canadian data. The policy implications are based on social welfare evaluations.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Inflation and prices, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32, E5, E52

• Import Price Dynamics in Major Advanced Economies and Heterogeneity in Exchange Rate Pass-Through

  Staff Working Paper 2008-39 Stephane Dees, Matthias Burgert, Nicolas Parent

  This paper aims at showing heterogeneity in the degree of exchange rate pass-through to import prices in major advanced economies at three different levels: 1) across destination markets; 2) across types of exporters (distinguishing developed economy from emerging economy exporters); and 3) over time.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, F, F3, F4, F41

• Adopting Price-Level Targeting under Imperfect Credibility: An Update

  Staff Working Paper 2008-37 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Malik Shukayev, Alexander Ueberfeldt

  This paper measures the welfare gains of switching from inflation-targeting to price-level targeting under imperfect credibility. Vestin (2006) shows that when the monetary authority cannot commit to future policy, price-level targeting yields higher welfare than inflation targeting.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credibility, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, E52

• Aggregate and Welfare Effects of Redistribution of Wealth Under Inflation and Price-Level Targeting

  Staff Working Paper 2008-31 Césaire Meh, José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, Yaz Terajima

  Since the work of Doepke and Schneider (2006a) and Meh and Terajima (2008), we know that inflation causes major redistribution of wealth – between households and the government, between nationals and foreigners, and between households within the same country.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Inflation and prices, Inflation targets, Inflation: costs and benefits, Monetary policy framework, Sectoral balance sheet JEL Code(s): D, D3, D31, E, E2, E21, E3, E31, E4, E44, E5, E52, E6, E63

• The Welfare Implications of Fiscal Dominance

  Staff Working Paper 2008-28 Carlos De Resende, Nooman Rebei

  This paper studies the interdependence between fiscal and monetary policy in a DSGE model with sticky prices and non-zero trend inflation. We characterize the fiscal and monetary policies by a rule whereby a given fraction k of the government debt must be backed by the discounted value of current and future primary surpluses.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Fiscal policy, Inflation: costs and benefits, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E4, E42, E5, E50, E6, E63

• Are Bygones not Bygones? Modeling Price Level Targeting with an Escape Clause and Lessons from the Gold Standard

  Staff Working Paper 2008-27 Paul Masson, Malik Shukayev

  Like the gold standard, price level targeting (PT) involves not letting past deviations of inflation be bygones; both regimes return the price level (or price of gold) to its target. The experience of suspension of the gold standard in World War I, resumption in the 1920s (for some countries at a different parity), and final abandonment is reviewed.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credibility, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, E52

• A Structural VAR Approach to Core Inflation in Canada

  Staff Discussion Paper 2008-10 Sylvain Martel

  The author constructs a measure of core inflation using a structural vector autoregression containing oil-price growth, output growth, and inflation. This "macro-founded" measure of inflation forecasts total inflation at least as well as other, atheoretical measures.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, E, E3, E31

• Inflation, Nominal Portfolios, and Wealth Redistribution in Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2008-19 Césaire Meh, Yaz Terajima

  There is currently a policy debate on potential refinements to monetary policy regimes in countries with low and stable inflation such as the U.S. and Canada. For example, in Canada, a systematic review of the current inflation targeting framework is underway.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Inflation targets, Inflation: costs and benefits, Monetary policy framework, Sectoral balance sheet JEL Code(s): D, D3, D31, D5, D58, E, E3, E31, E5, E50

• Markups in Canada: Have They Changed and Why?

  Staff Working Paper 2008-7 Danny Leung

  Many empirical studies have examined the cyclical nature of the markup ratio. Until recently, few have attempted to ascertain the changes in the markup over a longer time horizon.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, F, F4, F41, L, L1, L11

• Inflation Targeting and Price-Level-Path Targeting in the GEM: Some Open Economy Considerations

  Staff Working Paper 2008-6 Donald Coletti, René Lalonde, Dirk Muir

  This paper compares the performance of simple inflation targeting (IT) and price-level path targeting (PLPT) rules to stabilize the macroeconomy, in response to a series of shocks, similar to those seen in Canada and the United States over the 1983 to 2004 period.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Inflation and prices, Inflation: costs and benefits, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): C, C5, C51, C52, E, E1, E17, E3, E31, E5, E52