Jonathan Witmer - Latest

• Assessing the Impact of the Bank of Canada’s Government Bond Purchases

  Staff Discussion Paper 2024-5 Chinara Azizova, Jonathan Witmer, Xu Zhang

  In March 2020, the Bank of Canada implemented the Government of Canada Bond Purchase Program, eventually purchasing approximately $340 billion of government bonds. In this paper, we analyze the impact of this program on financial market prices and yields as well as on GDP and inflation.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Inflation and prices, Monetary policy, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, E58, G, G2, G21, G28

• Estimating the Appropriate Quantity of Settlement Balances in a Floor System

  Staff Discussion Paper 2023-26 Narayan Bulusu, Matthew McNeely, Kaetlynd McRae, Jonathan Witmer

  This paper presents two complementary approaches to estimating the appropriate quantity of settlement balances needed to effectively operate monetary policy under a floor system in Canada.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Monetary policy implementation, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, E42, E5, E52, E58, G, G2, G21, G28

• Reviewing Canada’s Monetary Policy Implementation System: Does the Evolving Environment Support Maintaining a Floor System?

  Staff Discussion Paper 2023-10 Toni Gravelle, Ron Morrow, Jonathan Witmer

  At the onset of the pandemic, the Bank of Canada transitioned its framework for monetary policy implementation from a corridor system to a floor system, which it has since decided to maintain. We provide a comprehensive analysis of both frameworks and assess their relative merits based on five key criteria that define a sound framework.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Market structure and pricing, Monetary policy implementation, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): D, D4, D47, E, E4, E42, E5, E58

• Summaries of Central Bank Policy Deliberations: A Canadian Context

  Staff Discussion Paper 2023-2 Monica Jain, Walter Muiruri, Jonathan Witmer, Sharon Kozicki, Jeremy Harrison

  This paper provides the context, rationale and key considerations that informed the Bank of Canada’s decision to publish a summary of monetary policy deliberations. It includes an analysis of how other central banks disclose minutes and summaries of their monetary policy deliberations.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Monetary policy communications JEL Code(s): D, D8, D83, E, E5, E58

• Implementation and Effectiveness of Extended Monetary Policy Tools: Lessons from the Literature

  Staff Discussion Paper 2020-16 Grahame Johnson, Sharon Kozicki, Romanos Priftis, Lena Suchanek, Jonathan Witmer, Jing Yang

  This paper summarizes the literature on the performance of various extended monetary policy tools when conventional policy rates are constrained by the effective lower bound. We highlight issues that may arise when these tools are used by central banks of small open economies.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Monetary policy, Monetary policy implementation, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, E58, E6, E63

• Market Timing of Long-Term Debt Issuance

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-14 Jonathan Witmer

  The literature on market timing of long-term debt issuance yields mixed evidence that managers can successfully time their debt-maturity issuance. The early results that are indicative of debt-maturity timing are not robust to accounting for structural breaks or to other measures of debt maturity from firm-level data that account for call and put provisions in […]

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): G, G3, G30, G38