Monetary policy

• Benchmarks for assessing labour market health: 2024 update

  Staff analytical note 2024-8 Erik Ens, Alexander Lam, Kurt See, Gabriela Galassi

  We assess the health of the Canadian labour market. We find that it has seen gradual but material easing since 2023, amid some signs of structural changes.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes JEL Code(s): E, E2, J, J2, J3, J6 Research Theme(s): Monetary policy, Inflation dynamics and pressures, Real economy and forecasting, Structural challenges, Demographics and labour supply

• The Neutral Interest Rate: Past, Present and Future

  Staff discussion paper 2024-3 Matteo Cacciatore, Bruno Feunou, Galip Kemal Ozhan

  The decline in safe real interest rates over the past three decades has reignited discussions on the neutral real interest rate, known as R*. We address the determinants and estimation methods of R*, as well as the factors influencing its decline and its future trajectory.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E5, E52, E6, E62 Research Theme(s): Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework and transmission, Real economy and forecasting

• U.S. Macroeconomic News and Low-Frequency Changes in Small Open Economies’ Bond Yields

  Staff working paper 2024-12 Bingxin Ann Xing, Bruno Feunou, Morvan Nongni-Donfack, Rodrigo Sekkel

  Using two complementary approaches, we investigate the importance of U.S. macroeconomic news in driving low-frequency fluctuations in the term structure of interest rates in Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom. We find that U.S. macroeconomic news is particularly important to explain changes in the expectation components of the nominal, real and break-even inflation rates of small open economies.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E44, E47, G, G1, G14 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Econometric, statistical and computational methods, Economic models, Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework and transmission, Structural challenges, International trade, finance and competitiveness

• Pricing behaviour and inflation during the COVID-19 pandemic: Insights from consumer prices microdata

  Staff analytical note 2024-6 Olga Bilyk, Mikael Khan, Olena Kostyshyna

  Using the microdata underlying the Canadian consumer price index, we study how often and by how much firms changed their prices during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that the surge in inflation was mainly associated with retailers raising prices much more often than before. We also find that more recently, corporate price-setting behaviour appears to be approaching pre-pandemic norms.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes JEL Code(s): D, D2, D22, E, E3, E31, L, L1, L11 Research Theme(s): Monetary policy, Inflation dynamics and pressures, Real economy and forecasting

• Measuring household financial stress in Canada using consumer surveys

  Staff analytical note 2024-5 Nicolas Bédard, Patrick Sabourin

  We use data from the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations to understand how households are coping with high inflation and high interest rates. We build a subjective measure of financial stress and find that the level of stress is at a historical high but remains manageable for most households.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes JEL Code(s): D, D1, D14, G, G5, H, H3 Research Theme(s): Financial system, Household and business credit, Monetary policy, Real economy and forecasting

• Forecasting Recessions in Canada: An Autoregressive Probit Model Approach

  Staff working paper 2024-10 Antoine Poulin-Moore, Kerem Tuzcuoglu

  We forecast recessions in Canada using an autoregressive (AR) probit model. The results highlight the short-term predictive power of the US economic activity and suggest that financial indicators are reliable predictors of Canadian recessions. In addition, the suggested model meaningfully improves the ability to forecast Canadian recessions, relative to a variety of probit models proposed in the Canadian literature.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): C, C5, C51, C53, E, E3, E32 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Econometric, statistical and computational methods, Monetary policy, Real economy and forecasting

• CBDC: Banking and Anonymity

  Staff working paper 2024-9 Yuteng Cheng, Ryuichiro Izumi

  We examine the optimal amount of user anonymity in a central bank digital currency in the context of bank lending. Anonymity, defined as the lender’s inability to discern an entrepreneur’s actions that enable fund diversion, influences the choice of payment instrument due to its impact on a bank’s lending decisions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, E5, E58, G, G2, G28 Research Theme(s): Financial system, Financial institutions and intermediation, Monetary policy, Monetary policy tools and implementation, Money and payments, Digital assets and fintech, Retail payments

• Monetary Policy Transmission Through Shadow and Traditional Banks

  Staff working paper 2024-8 Amina Enkhbold

  I investigate how monetary policy transmits to mortgage rates via the mortgage market concentration channel for both traditional and shadow banks in the United States from 2009 to 2019. On average, shadow and traditional banks exhibit only a slight disparity in transmitting monetary shocks to mortgage rates.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, E5, E52, G, G2, G21 Research Theme(s): Financial system, Financial institutions and intermediation, Household and business credit, Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework and transmission

• Regulation, Emissions and Productivity: Evidence from China’s Eleventh Five-Year Plan

  Staff working paper 2024-7 Brantly Callaway, Tong Li, Joel Rodrigue, Yuya Sasaki, Yong Tan

  We study the degree to which China’s 11th Five-Year Plan softens trade-offs between emissions and output. Our model suggests efficient regulation could have further increased aggregate productivity by 3.5% and output by 4.7% without any increase in aggregate emissions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): C, C2, C21, D, D2, D24, Q, Q5, Q53 Research Theme(s): Monetary policy, Real economy and forecasting, Structural challenges, Climate change, Digitalization and productivity

• What has been putting upward pressure on CORRA?

  Staff analytical note 2024-4 Boran Plong, Neil Maru

  From the autumn of 2023 into early 2024, the Canadian Overnight Repo Rate Average (CORRA), a measure of the cost of overnight general collateral Canadian dollar repos, was consistently well above the Bank’s target for the overnight rate. We find that, among several factors, long bond positions that require repo financing are the main driver of the recent upward pressure on CORRA.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes JEL Code(s): D, D4, D5, D53, E, E4, E43, E44, E5, E52, G, G1, G12 Research Theme(s): Financial markets and funds management, Market functioning, Financial system, Financial institutions and intermediation, Monetary policy, Monetary policy tools and implementation