Staff research

• The Role of Financial Speculation in Driving the Price of Crude Oil

  Staff Discussion Paper 2011-6 Ron Alquist, Olivier Gervais

  Over the past 10 years, financial firms have increased the size of their positions in the oil futures market. At the same time, oil prices have increased dramatically.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): International topics JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, Q, Q4, Q41

• External Stability, Real Exchange Rate Adjustment and the Exchange Rate Regime in Emerging-Market Economies

  Staff Discussion Paper 2011-5 Olivier Gervais, Lawrence L. Schembri, Lena Suchanek

  In emerging-market economies, real exchange rate adjustment is critical for maintaining a sustainable current account position and thereby for helping to reduce macroeconomic and financial instability.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Development economics, Exchange rate regimes, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F3, F31, F32, F4, F41

• Lessons from International Central Counterparties: Benchmarking and Analysis

  Staff Discussion Paper 2011-4 Alexandre Lazarow

  Since the financial crisis, attention has focused on central counterparties (CCPs) as a solution to systemic risk for a variety of financial markets, ranging from repurchase agreements and options to swaps.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G1, G14, G18, G2, G28, G3, G38

• Forecasting the Price of Oil

  Staff Working Paper 2011-15 Ron Alquist, Lutz Kilian, Robert Vigfusson

  We address some of the key questions that arise in forecasting the price of crude oil. What do applied forecasters need to know about the choice of sample period and about the tradeoffs between alternative oil price series and model specifications?

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, Q, Q4, Q43, Q47

• Real-Financial Linkages in the Canadian Economy: An Input-Output Approach

  Staff Working Paper 2011-14 Danny Leung, Oana Secrieru

  The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we provide a detailed social accounting matrix (SAM), which incorporates the income and financial flows into the standard input-output matrix, for the Canadian economy for 2004.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Economic models, Financial markets, Sectoral balance sheet JEL Code(s): C, C6, C67, D, D5, D57

• Bank Loans for Private and Public Firms in a Credit Crunch

  Staff Working Paper 2011-13 Jason Allen, Teodora Paligorova

  Banks reliance on short-term funding has increased over time. While an effective source of financing in good times, the 2007 financial crisis has exposed the vulnerability of banks and ultimately firms to such a liability structure.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial institutions JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G2, G20

• The Canadian Debt-Strategy Model: An Overview of the Principal Elements

  Staff Discussion Paper 2011-3 David Bolder, Simon Deeley

  The Canadian Debt Strategy Model helps debt managers determine their optimal financing strategy. The model’s code and documentation are available to the public.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Debt management, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets, Fiscal policy JEL Code(s): C, C0, G, G1, G11, G17, H, H6, H63

• The Behaviour of Consumer Prices Across Provinces

  Staff Discussion Paper 2011-2 Gordon Wilkinson

  Measures of core inflation enable a central bank to distinguish price movements that are transitory and generated by non-monetary events from those that are more permanent and related to prior monetary policy decisions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31

• Financial Factors and Labour Market Fluctuations

  Staff Working Paper 2011-12 Yahong Zhang

  What are the effects of financial market imperfections on unemployment and vacancies? Since standard DSGE models do not typically model unemployment, they abstract from this issue.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Economic models, Financial markets, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E44, J, J6

• Mixed Frequency Forecasts for Chinese GDP

  Staff Working Paper 2011-11 Philipp Maier

  We evaluate different approaches for using monthly indicators to predict Chinese GDP for the current and the next quarter (‘nowcasts’ and ‘forecasts’, respectively). We use three types of mixed-frequency models, one based on an economic activity indicator (Liu et al., 2007), one based on averaging over indicator models (Stock and Watson, 2004), and a static factor model (Stock and Watson, 2002).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C50, C53, E, E3, E37, E4, E47