Pierre St-Amant - Bank Publications

• 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

• The Productivity Slowdown in Canada: An ICT Phenomenon?

  Staff Working Paper 2019-2 Jeffrey Mollins, Pierre St-Amant

  We ask whether a weaker contribution of information and communication technologies (ICT) to productivity growth could account for the productivity slowdown observed in Canada since the early 2000s. To answer this question, we consider several methods capturing channels through which ICT could affect aggregate productivity growth.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D2, D24, O, O4, O41, O47

• Firm Dynamics and Multifactor Productivity: An Empirical Exploration

  Staff Working Paper 2018-15 Pierre St-Amant, David Tessier

  There are indications that business dynamism has declined in advanced economies. In particular, firm entry and exit rates have fallen, suggesting that the creative destruction process has lost some of its vitality. Meanwhile, productivity growth has slowed. Some believe that lower entry and exit rates partly explain the weaker productivity growth.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Firm dynamics, Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D2, D24, M, M1, M13, O, O4, O47

• Dismiss the Gap? A Real-Time Assessment of the Usefulness of Canadian Output Gaps in Forecasting Inflation

  Staff Working Paper 2018-10 Lise Pichette, Marie-Noëlle Robitaille, Mohanad Salameh, Pierre St-Amant

  We use a new real-time database for Canada to study various output gap measures. This includes recently developed measures based on models incorporating many variables as inputs (and therefore requiring real-time data for many variables).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices, Potential output JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, E, E3, E37

• April 2016 Annual Reassessment of Potential Output in Canada

  Staff Analytical Note 2016-4 Andrew Agopsowicz, Dany Brouillette, Shutao Cao, Natalia Kyui, Pierre St-Amant

  This note summarizes the Bank of Canada’s 2016 annual reassessment of potential output growth, which is projected to be 1.5 per cent over 2016–18 and 1.6 per cent in 2019–20. This projection is weaker than the one presented in the April 2015 Monetary Policy Report.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Labour markets, Potential output, Productivity

• Credit Conditions and Consumption, House Prices and Debt: What Makes Canada Different?

  Staff Working Paper 2015-40 John Muellbauer, Pierre St-Amant, David Williams

  There is widespread agreement that, in the United States, higher house prices raise consumption via collateral or possibly wealth effects. The presence of similar channels in Canada would have important implications for monetary policy transmission.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Domestic demand and components, Economic models, Financial institutions, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Housing, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E0, E02, E2, E21, E4, E44, G, G2, G21, R, R2, R21, R3, R31

• Trends in Firm Entry and New Entrepreneurship in Canada

  Staff Discussion Paper 2015-11 Shutao Cao, Mohanad Salameh, Mai Seki, Pierre St-Amant

  Recently released data show downward trends for both the firm entry rate and the rate of new entrepreneurship since the early 1980s in Canada. This paper documents these trends and discusses potential explanations.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Firm dynamics, Market structure and pricing, Productivity JEL Code(s): L, L1, L11, M, M1, M13

• Measuring Potential Output at the Bank of Canada: The Extended Multivariate Filter and the Integrated Framework

  Staff Discussion Paper 2015-1 Lise Pichette, Pierre St-Amant, Ben Tomlin, Karine Anoma

  Estimating potential output and the output gap - the difference between actual output and its potential - is important for the proper conduct of monetary policy. However, the measurement and interpretation of potential output, and hence the output gap, is fraught with uncertainty, since it is unobservable.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Economic models, Inflation and prices, Labour markets, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E0, E3, E31, E5, E52
• August 15, 2013

  The Accuracy of Short-Term Forecast Combinations

  Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2013 Eleonora Granziera, Corinne Luu, Pierre St-Amant

  This article examines whether combining forecasts of real GDP from different models can improve forecast accuracy and considers which model-combination methods provide the best performance. In line with previous literature, the authors find that combining forecasts generally improves forecast accuracy relative to various benchmarks. Unlike several previous studies, however, they find that, rather than assigning equal weights to each model, unequal weighting based on the past forecast performance of models tends to improve accuracy when forecasts across models are substantially different.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C5, C52, C53, E, E3, E37
• November 18, 2010

  Financial Stress, Monetary Policy, and Economic Activity

  Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2010 Fuchun Li, Pierre St-Amant

  The recent global crisis was characterized by a remarkable intensity in the negative feedback process between financial sector developments and the real economy.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models, Monetary policy transmission