E43 - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects

• Convergence of Government Bond Yields in the Euro Zone: The Role of Policy Harmonization

  Staff Working Paper 2004-23 Denise Côté, Christopher Graham

  Since the early 1980s, long-term government bond yields in the euro zone have declined, in line with those in other industrialized countries.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Interest rates, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C2, C23, E, E4, E43, E44, F, F3, F36

• Estimating the Fractional Order of Integration of Interest Rates Using a Wavelet OLS Estimator

  Staff Working Paper 2000-5 Greg Tkacz

  The debate on the order of integration of interest rates has long focused on the I(1) versus I(0) distinction. In this paper, we use instead the wavelet OLS estimator of Jensen (1999) to estimate the fractional integration parameters of several interest rates for the United States and Canada from 1948 to 1999.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Interest rates JEL Code(s): C, C1, C13, E, E4, E43

• The Expectations Hypothesis for the Longer End of the Term Structure: Some Evidence for Canada

  Staff Working Paper 1999-20 Ron Lange

  This paper assesses the expectations theory for the longer end of the term structure of Canadian interest rates using three empirical approaches that have received attention in the literature: (i) cointegration tests of the long-run unbiasedness hypothesis; (ii) simulations of a theoretical long-term yield that is consistent with the expectations hypothesis, and (iii) ex post […]

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43

• Uncovering Inflation Expectations and Risk Premiums From Internationally Integrated Financial Markets

  Staff Working Paper 1999-6 Ben Fung, Scott Mitnick, Eli Remolona

  Theory and empirical evidence suggest that the term structure of interest rates reflects risk premiums as well as market expectations about future inflation and real interest rates. We propose an approach to extracting such premiums and expectations by exploiting both the comovements among interest rates across the yield curve and between two countries, Canada and […]

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Inflation and prices, Interest rates, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, G, G1, G12, G15

• Predicting Canadian Recessions Using Financial Variables: A Probit Approach

  Staff Working Paper 1998-5 Joseph Atta-Mensah, Greg Tkacz

  This paper examines the ability of a number of financial variables to predict Canadian recessions. Regarding methodology, we follow closely the technique employed by Estrella and Mishkin (1998), who use a probit model to predict U.S. recessions up to eight quarters in advance. Our main finding is that the spread between the yield on Canadian […]

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E43

• Canadian Short-Term Interest Rates and the BAX Futures Market: Analysis of the Impact of Volatility on Hedging Activity and the Correlation of Returns between Markets

  Staff Working Paper 1997-18 David Watt

  This paper analyses how Canadian financial firms manage short-term interest rate risk through the use of BAX futures contracts. The results show that the most effective hedging strategy is, on average, a static strategy based on linear regression that assumes constant variances, even though dynamic models allowing for time-varying variances are found to have superior explanatory power.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43

• The Structure of Interest Rates in Canada: Information Content about Medium-Term Inflation

  Staff Working Paper 1997-10 Jim Day, Ron Lange

  This paper examines the relationship between the term structure of interest rates and future changes in inflation for Canada using a newly constructed par-value yield series. The main conclusion of the empirical work is that the slope of the nominal term structure from 1- to 5-year maturities is a reasonably good predictor of future changes in inflation over these horizons.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Interest rates, Monetary and financial indicators JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43

• L'endettement du Canada et ses effets sur les taux d'intérêt réels de long terme

  Staff Working Paper 1996-14 Jean-François Fillion

  This paper examines the effects that Canada's indebtedness has on Canadian real long-term interest rates, using the vector error-correction model (VECM). Our results show that there is a strongly cointegrated relationship between real interest rates in Canada, U.S. real interest rates, and Canadian public and external debt ratios.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Fiscal policy, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, F, F3, F30, H, H6, H60

• Interpreting Money-Supply and Interest-Rate Shocks as Monetary-Policy Shocks

  Staff Working Paper 1996-8 Marcel Kasumovich

  In this paper two shocks are analysed using Canadian data: a money-supply shock ("M-shock") and an interest-rate shock ("R-shock"). Money-supply shocks are derived using long-run restrictions based on long-run propositions of monetary theory. Thus, an M-shock is represented by an orthogonalized innovation in the trend shared by money and prices.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Monetary and financial indicators, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E5, E51

• Decomposing U.S. Nominal Interest Rates into Expected Inflation and Ex Ante Real Interest Rates Using Structural VAR Methodology

  Staff Working Paper 1996-2 Pierre St-Amant

  In this paper, the author uses structural vector autoregression methodology to decompose U.S. nominal interest rates into an expected inflation component and an ex ante real interest rate component. He identifies inflation expectations and ex ante real interest rate shocks by assuming that nominal interest rates and inflation expectations move one-for-one in the long-run—they are cointegrated (1,1)—and that the real interest rate is stationary.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Interest rates, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E4, E43