E4 - Money and Interest Rates
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Optimal Currency Areas: A Review of the Recent Literature
This paper surveys the recent literature on optimal currency areas (OCAs). Topics that are covered include theoretical developments in the context of general-equilibrium models and empirical work on shocks asymmetry and adjustment mechanisms. Issues relating to the endogeneity of OCA criteria, the role of exchange rate flexibility in promoting greater macroeconomic stability, and the links […] -
Uncovering Inflation Expectations and Risk Premiums From Internationally Integrated Financial Markets
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 […] -
Forecasting GDP Growth Using Artificial Neural Networks
Financial and monetary variables have long been known to contain useful leading information regarding economic activity. In this paper, the authors wish to determine whether the forecasting performance of such variables can be improved using neural network models. The main findings are that, at the 1-quarter forecasting horizon, neural networks yield no significant forecast improvements. […] -
Forecasting Inflation with the M1-VECM: Part Two
A central bank's main concern is the general direction of future inflation, and not transitory fluctuations of the inflation rate. As a result, this paper is concerned with forecasting a simple measure of the trend of inflation, the eight-quarter CPI-inflation rate. The primary objective is to improve the M1-based vector-error-correction model (VECM) developed by Hendry […] -
Predicting Canadian Recessions Using Financial Variables: A Probit Approach
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 […] -
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
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. -
The Structure of Interest Rates in Canada: Information Content about Medium-Term Inflation
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. -
The Liquidity Trap: Evidence from Japan
Japanese economic activity has been stagnant since the collapse of the speculative asset-price bubble in 1990, despite highly expansionary monetary policy which has brought interest rates down to record low levels. Although several reasons have been put forward to explain the sustained weakness of the Japanese economy, none is more intriguing from the viewpoint of a central bank than the possibility that monetary policy had been largely ineffective because the Japanese economy entered a Keynesian "liquidity trap." -
L'endettement du Canada et ses effets sur les taux d'intérêt réels de long terme
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.