Research Field(s): Applied Econometrics Labour Economics Technological Change

Staff analytical notes

Potential output and the neutral rate in Canada: 2021 update

Staff Analytical Note 2021-6 Dany Brouillette, Guyllaume Faucher, Martin Kuncl, Austin McWhirter, Youngmin Park
We expect potential output growth to be higher than in the October 2020 reassessment. By 2024, growth will be slightly above its average growth from 2010 to 2019. We assess that the Canadian nominal neutral rate continues to lie in the range of 1.75 to 2.75 percent.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Economic models, Interest rates, Labour markets, Monetary policy, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E2, E23, E24, E3, E37, E4, E43, E5, E52

Potential output in Canada: 2020 reassessment

Staff Analytical Note 2020-25 Dany Brouillette, Julien Champagne, Julien McDonald-Guimond
After COVID-19, we expect potential output growth to stabilize around 1.2 percent. This is lower than the 2010–18 average growth of 1.8 percent. Relative to the April 2019 reassessment, the growth profile is revised down. Given the unknown course of the pandemic, uncertainty around these estimates is higher than in previous years.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Labour markets, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E0, E00, E2, E23, E24, E3, E37, E6

Potential Output in Canada: 2019 Reassessment

Staff Analytical Note 2019-10 Dany Brouillette, Julien Champagne, Carol Khoury, Natalia Kyui, Jeffrey Mollins, Youngmin Park
Potential output is expected to grow on average at 1.8 per cent over 2019–21 and at 1.9 per cent in 2022. While the contribution of trend labour input to potential output growth is expected to decrease between 2019 and 2022, the contribution of trend labour productivity is projected to increase.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Labour markets, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E0, E00, E2, E22, E23, E24, E3, E37, E6

What Is Restraining Non-Energy Export Growth?

Staff Analytical Note 2018-25 Dany Brouillette, José Dorich, Chris D'Souza, Adrienne Gagnon, Claudia Godbout
This note summarizes the key findings from Bank of Canada staff analytical work examining the reasons for the recent weakness in Canadian non-energy exports. Canada steadily lost market share in US non-energy imports between 2002 and 2017, mostly reflecting continued and broad-based competitiveness losses.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): International topics, Monetary policy, Recent economic and financial developments, Trade integration JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, F, F1, F10, F14, F17

Bending the Curves: Wages and Inflation

Staff Analytical Note 2018-15 Dany Brouillette, Madigan Dockrill, Helen Lao, Laurence Savoie-Chabot
As economic slack continues to be absorbed and the labour market tightens, wage growth and inflation could increase faster than expected, which would suggest convexity in their Phillips curves. This note investigates whether there is convexity in the Phillips curves for Canadian wage growth and inflation by testing different empirical approaches over the post-inflation-targeting period.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E3, E31, J, J3

Potential Output in Canada: 2018 Reassessment

Staff Analytical Note 2018-10 Andrew Agopsowicz, Dany Brouillette, Bassirou Gueye, Julien McDonald-Guimond, Jeffrey Mollins, Youngmin Park
This note summarizes the reassessment of potential output, conducted by the Bank of Canada for the April 2018 Monetary Policy Report. Overall, the profile for potential output growth is expected to remain flat at 1.8 per cent between 2018 and 2020 and 1.9 per cent in 2021.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Labour markets, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E0, E00, E2, E22, E23, E24, E3, E37, E6

Wages: Measurement and Key Drivers

Staff Analytical Note 2018-2 Dany Brouillette, Jonathan Lachaine, Benoit Vincent
Available sources of hourly wage data in Canada sometimes send conflicting signals about wage growth. This note thus has two objectives: first, we develop a wage measure—the wage-common—to better capture the (underlying) wage pressures reflecting the common trend across the available data sources. Second, we re-examine the relationship between wage growth and macro drivers (labour market slack and labour productivity).
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Labour markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): C, C3, C38, J, J3

The Impacts of Minimum Wage Increases on the Canadian Economy

Staff Analytical Note 2017-26 Dany Brouillette, Daniel Gao, Olivier Gervais, Calista Cheung
This note reviews the channels through which scheduled minimum wage increases over the coming years may affect Canadian economic activity and inflation and assesses their macroeconomic impacts. From reduced-form estimates of direct minimum wage pass-through, we find that consumer price index (CPI) inflation could be boosted by about 0.1 percentage point (pp) on average in 2018.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Labour markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, J, J2, J21, J22, J23

Global Factors and Inflation in Canada

Staff Analytical Note 2017-17 Dany Brouillette, Laurence Savoie-Chabot
This note investigates whether the recent weakness in inflation in Canada can be related to global factors not included in the current staff analytical framework (domestic slack, movements in commodity prices and in the exchange rate). A global common factor for inflation among selected advanced economies appears to contain marginal information for Canadian inflation beyond what is found in movements in commodity prices and the exchange rate.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31

Wage Growth in Canada and the United States: Factors Behind Recent Weakness

Staff Analytical Note 2017-8 Dany Brouillette, James Ketcheson, Olena Kostyshyna, Jonathan Lachaine
This note examines the relatively subdued pace of wage growth in Canada since the commodity price decline in 2014 and assesses whether the weakness is attributable to cyclical (e.g., labour market slack) or structural factors (e.g., resource reallocation and demographic change).
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Labour markets, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, J, J3, J30

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Staff working papers

The Trend Unemployment Rate in Canada: Searching for the Unobservable

Staff Working Paper 2019-13 Dany Brouillette, Marie-Noëlle Robitaille, Laurence Savoie-Chabot, Pierre St-Amant, Bassirou Gueye, Elise Nelson
In this paper, we assess several methods that have been used to measure the Canadian trend unemployment rate (TUR). We also consider improvements and extensions to some existing methods.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models, Inflation and prices, Labour markets JEL Code(s): C, C5, C52, C53, E, E2, E24, E27

Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in Canada: Evidence from Micro- Level Data

Staff Working Paper 2016-40 Dany Brouillette, Olena Kostyshyna, Natalia Kyui
We assess the importance of downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) in Canada using both firm- and worker-level microdata. In particular, we analyze employer-level administrative data from the Major Wage Settlements (MWS) and household-based survey data from the Survey of Labour Income Dynamics (SLID).
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, J, J3, J30

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Bank publications

Bank of Canada Review articles

May 16, 2016

The Micro and Macro of Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity

Bank of Canada Review - Spring 2016 Robert Amano, Dany Brouillette, Stefano Gnocchi, Natalia Kyui
The article examines the extent of downward nominal wage rigidity in Canada and its implications for monetary policy. The authors ask whether its existence is a sufficient argument for a higher inflation target if concerns about the effective lower bound are adequately addressed.
Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Inflation targets, Labour markets, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E4, E5, J, J2, J23, J3, J30

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