Lori Rennison was appointed Assistant Chief, Regional Analysis Division of the Bank of Canada’s Canadian Economic Analysis Department (CEA) in March 2011. She is part of the leadership team that directs and manages the department and she oversees the economic analysis activities of the Bank’s five regional offices (Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montréal and Halifax). She leads the division in carrying out and publishing the quarterly Business Outlook Survey, conducting regional and sectoral analysis and economic research, and supporting the Bank’s communication strategy.
Ms. Rennison was born in Carlisle Ontario. She has a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Victoria, and a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Management Economics in Industry and Finance from the University of Guelph.
Prior to her current job, Ms. Rennison was a Senior Representative (Economics) in CEA’s Regional Analysis Division. She joined the Bank in 2007 from the Department of Finance where she was Chief, U.S. Economic Analysis and Forecasting. Previously at the Department of Finance, she held positions as Chief and Senior Economist in the Canadian Demand and Labour section. She started her career in the Micro-Economic Policy Analysis Division of Industry Canada.
Ms. Rennison is based in the Bank’s Vancouver Regional Office.
This article reviews recent work that uses principal-component analysis to extract information common to indicators from the Bank of Canada’s Business Outlook Survey (BOS). The authors use correlation analysis and an out-of-sample forecasting exercise to assess and compare the information content of the principal component with that of responses to key individual survey questions on growth in real gross domestic product and in real business investment. Results suggest that summarizing the common movements among BOS indicators may provide useful information for forecasting near-term growth in business investment. For growth in real gross domestic product, however, the survey’s balance of opinion on future sales growth appears to be more informative.
: Business fluctuations and cycles; Regional economic developments
