Césaire Meh

Macroprudential Rules and Monetary Policy when Financial Frictions Matter

This paper examines the interaction between monetary policy and macroprudential policy and whether policy makers should respond to financial imbalances. To address this issue, we build a dynamic general equilibrium model that features financial market frictions and financial shocks as well as standard macroeconomic shocks.

Household Borrowing and Spending in Canada

Understanding how much of the increased debt load of Canadian households has been used to finance household spending on consumption and home renovation is important for the conduct of monetary policy. In this article, the authors use a comprehensive data set that provides information on the uses of debt by Canadian households. They first present some facts regarding the evolution of Canadian household debt over the period from 1999 to 2010, emphasizing the increased importance of debt flows that are secured by housing. They then explore how Canadian households have used their borrowed funds over the same period, and assess the role of these borrowed funds in financing total consumption and spending on home renovation. Finally, they examine the possible effects of a decline in house prices on consumption when housing equity is used as collateral against household indebtedness.

Financial Structure and Economic Growth: A Non-Technical Survey

Endogenous Market Incompleteness with Investment Risks

The Role of Bank Capital in the Propagation of Shocks

Bank Leverage Regulation and Macroeconomic Dynamics

This paper assesses the merits of countercyclical bank balance sheet regulation for the stabilization of financial and economic cycles and examines its interaction with monetary policy.

Innovation and Growth with Financial, and Other, Frictions

The generation and implementation of ideas, or knowledge, is crucial for economic performance. We study this process in a model of endogenous growth with frictions.

Bank Balance Sheets, Deleveraging and the Transmission Mechanism

The author investigates the influence of bank capital on economic activity, using a macroeconomic model that incorporates an explicit role for financial intermediation. The analysis focuses on the role of a “bank-capital channel” in propagating and amplifying monetary policy actions and other shocks. The question of whether weaker bank balance sheets make the economy more vulnerable to adverse shocks is examined, together with the impact of initiatives, such as countercyclical capital buffers, on the transmission of monetary policy and other shocks to the real economy.

Leverage, Balance Sheet Size and Wholesale Funding

Some evidence points to the procyclicality of leverage among financial institutions leading to aggregate volatility. This procyclicality occurs when financial institutions finance their assets with non-equity funding (i.e., debt financed asset expansions). Wholesale funding is an important source of market-based funding that allows some institutions to quickly adjust their leverage.

Should Monetary Policy Be Used to Counteract Financial Imbalances?

The authors examine whether monetary policy should and could do more to lean against financial imbalances (such as those associated with asset-price bubbles or unsustainable credit expansion) as they are building up, or whether its role should be limited to cleaning up the economic consequences as the imbalances unwind. Effective supervision and regulation are the first line of defence against financial imbalances. An important question is whether they should be the only one. The authors argue that the case for monetary policy to lean against financial imbalances depends on the sources of the shock or market failure and on the nature of the other regulatory instruments available. To the extent that financial imbalances are specific to a sector or market and that a well-targeted prudential tool is available, monetary policy might play a minor role in leaning against the imbalances. However, if the imbalances in a specific market can spill over to the entire economy and/or if the prudential tool is broad based, monetary policy is more likely to have a role to play. In such a case, there may be a need to coordinate the use of the two policy instruments.

Household Debt, Assets, and Income in Canada: A Microdata Study

The authors use microdata from the 1999 and 2005 Surveys of Financial Security to identify changes in household debt, and discuss their potential implications for monetary policy and financial stability. They document an increase in the debt-income ratio, which rose from 0.75 to 0.95, on average.

Real Effects of Price Stability with Endogenous Nominal Indexation

We study a model with repeated moral hazard where financial contracts are not fully indexed to inflation because nominal prices are observed with delay as in Jovanovic & Ueda (1997). More constrained firms sign contracts that are less indexed to the nominal price and, as a result, their investment is more sensitive to nominal price [...]

Price-Level Uncertainty, Price-Level Targeting, and Nominal Debt Contracts

Many central banks around the world have embraced inflation targeting as a monetary policy framework. Interest is growing, however, in price-level targeting as an alternative. The choice of frameworks has important consequences for financial contracts, most of which are not fully indexed to the price level. Changes in the price level therefore lead to changes in the real value of contracts. Price-level targeting would reduce the size of these changes in real wealth and decrease uncertainty about the future price level. This article assesses the merits of price-level targeting vis-à-vis inflation targeting from a debt-revaluation perspective, with a focus on channels affecting risk premiums, the maturities of nominal debt contracts, and redistribution of wealth. A general conclusion flowing from the analysis is that accounting for the revaluation of nominal debts and assets strengthens the relative merits of price-level targeting compared with inflation-targeting.

Unexpected Inflation and Redistribution of Wealth in Canada

One of the most important arguments in favour of price stability is that unexpected inflation generates changes in the distribution of income and wealth among different economic agents. These redistributions occur because many loans are specified in fixed dollar terms and unexpected inflation redistributes wealth from creditors to debtors by reducing the real value of nominal assets and liabilities. This article quantifies the redistributional effects of unexpected inflation in Canada, providing comprehensive evidence of the nominal assets and liabilities of various economic sectors and household groups. A key finding is that the redistributional effects of unexpected inflation are large even with episodes of low inflation. The main winners are young, middle-income households who are major holders of fixed-rate mortgage debt and the government–inflation reduces the real burden of their debt. The losers are high-income households and middle-aged, middle-income households that hold long-term bonds and non-indexed pension wealth.

Uninsurable Investment Risks and Capital Income Taxation

This paper studies the capital accumulation and welfare implications of reducing capital income taxation in a general equilibrium economy with uninsurable investment risks. It has been shown that, with uninsurable investment risks, under-accumulation of capital may result compared to the complete markets economy. We show that reducing somewhat the capital income tax rate increases the [...]

Financial Intermediation, Liquidity and Inflation

This paper develops a search-theoretic model to study the interaction between banking and monetary policy and how this interaction affects the allocation and welfare. Regarding how banking affects the welfare costs of inflation: First, we find that, with banking, inflation generates smaller welfare costs. Second, we show that, lowering inflation improves welfare not just by [...]

Firm Size and Productivity

This paper examines the relationship between firm size and productivity. In contrast to previous studies, this paper offers evidence of the relationship not only from manufacturing firms, but from non-manufacturing firms as well. Furthermore, the aggregate importance of the firm size-productivity relationship is gauged by calculating to what extent shifts in the distribution of employment [...]

Are There Canada-U.S. Differences in SME Financing?

Previous surveys of Canadian and U.S. business owners suggest that access to financing in Canada may be more problematic than in the United States. Using the 2003 Survey of Small Business Financing in the United States and the 2004 Survey on Financing of Small and Medium Enterprises in Canada, this paper examines whether this perception can be better quantified.

The Role of Bank Capital in the Propagation of Shocks

Recent events in financial markets have underlined the importance of analyzing the link between the financial health of banks and real economic activity. This paper contributes to this analysis by constructing a dynamic general equilibrium model in which the balance sheet of banks affects the propagation of shocks. We use the model to conduct quantitative [...]

Productivity in Canada: Does Firm Size Matter?

The research findings highlighted in this article suggest that firm-size differences play a significant role in explaining the productivity gap between Canada and the United States. The authors review factors that lead to a positive relationship between productivity and size and then look at Canadian evidence of this relationship at the firm level. They quantify the extent to which the change in Canadian productivity as well as the Canada-U.S. productivity differences can be accounted for by the change in the importance of large firms and identify several factors that play a role in determining average firm size and aggregate productivity.

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

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.

Inflation, Nominal Portfolios, and Wealth Redistribution in Canada

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.

Unsecured Debt, Consumer Bankruptcy, and Small Business

In this paper we develop a quantitative model of entrepreneurial activity (risk-taking) and consumer bankruptcy choices and use the model to study the effects of bankruptcy regulations on entrepreneurial activity, bankruptcy rate and welfare. We show that eliminating bankruptcy exemptions leads to a modest increase in the fraction of entrepreneurs, a large decrease in the [...]

Uncertainty and the Specificity of Human Capital

This paper studies the choice between general and specific human capital. A trade-off arises because general human capital, while less productive, can easily be reallocated across firms.

Modelling Financial Channels for Monetary Policy Analysis

The Bank of Canada considers a wide range of information and analysis before making a monetary policy decision and uses carefully articulated models to produce economic projections and to examine alternative scenarios. This article describes an ongoing research agenda at the Bank to develop models in which financial variables play an active role in the transmission of monetary policy actions to economic activity. Such models can help to analyze information from the financial side of the economy and to provide an overall view of the implications of financial developments for the current economic outlook. The authors also explain how this research can help address other issues relevant to the objectives of monetary policy, including how asset-price movements should be taken into account in the monetary policy framework.