E58 - Central Banks and Their Policies

• On the Programmability and Uniformity of Digital Currencies

  Staff Working Paper 2025-18 Jonathan Chiu, Cyril Monnet

  Central bankers argue that programmable digital currencies may compromise the uniformity of money. We develop a stylized model to examine this argument and the trade-offs involved in circulating programmable money.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E5, E50, E58

• Assessing the US and Canadian neutral rates: 2025 update

  Staff Analytical Note 2025-16 Frida Adjalala, Felipe Alves, William Beaudoin, Hélène Desgagnés, Wei Dong, Ingomar Krohn, Jan David Schneider

  We assess both the US and Canadian nominal neutral rates to be in the range of 2.25% to 3.25%, unchanged from the range assessed in 2024.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Economic models, Interest rates, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E4, E40, E43, E5, E50, E52, E58, F, F4, F41

• The Optimum Quantity of Central Bank Reserves

  Staff Working Paper 2025-15 Jonathan Witmer

  This paper analyzes the optimal quantity of central bank reserves in an economy where reserves and other financial assets provide liquidity benefits. Using a static model, I derive a constrained Friedman rule that characterizes the socially optimal level of reserves, demonstrating that this quantity is neither necessarily large nor small but depends on the marginal benefits of reserves relative to alternative safe assets.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, E42, E5, E58, G, G2, G21, G28
• March 17, 2025

  Will asset managers dash for cash? A summary of the implications for central banks

  David Cimon, Jean-Philippe Dion, Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Jabir Sandhu

  We consider ways central banks could adapt in the event of an increased risk of a dash for cash from asset managers. We explore ideas such as new facilities that ease asset managers’ ability to convert existing assets to cash or new assets with liquidity that central banks would guarantee.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Financial System Hub articles Research Topic(s): Central bank research, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): E, E5, E58, G, G0, G00, G01, G1, G2

• Will Asset Managers Dash for Cash? Implications for Central Banks

  Staff Discussion Paper 2025-5 David Cimon, Jean-Philippe Dion, Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Jabir Sandhu

  We consider ways central banks could adapt in the event of an increased risk of a dash for cash from asset managers. We explore ideas such as new facilities that ease asset managers’ ability to convert existing assets to cash or new assets with liquidity that central banks would guarantee.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Central bank research, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): E, E5, E58, G, G0, G00, G01, G1, G2

• The Contingent Term Repo Facility: Lessons learned and an update

  Staff Analytical Note 2025-12 Jessie Ziqing Chen, Parnell Chu, Scott Kinnear

  In 2024, the Bank of Canada reviewed and updated its Contingent Term Repo Facility policy, incorporating lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and other global market developments, such as the UK gilt crisis in September 2022. This paper accompanies the March 17, 2025, Contingent Term Repo Facility market notice and provides background information and further details about the design of the revised policy.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Central bank research, Financial stability, Lender of last resort JEL Code(s): E, E5, E58, F, F6, F68, G, G0, G01, G2, G23

• Effects of macroprudential policy announcements on perceptions of systemic risks

  Staff Analytical Note 2025-4 Thibaut Duprey, Victoria Fernandes, Kerem Tuzcuoglu, Ruhani Walia

  We introduce a history of macroprudential policy (MPP) events in Canada since the 1980s. We document the short-run effects of MPP announcements on market-based measures of systemic risk and find that MPPs can influence the market’s perception of large banks’ resilience.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial institutions, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): E, E5, E58, G, G2, G21, G28, G3, G32

• Interaction of Macroprudential and Monetary Policies: Practice Ahead of Theory

  Staff Discussion Paper 2024-18 Thibaut Duprey, Yaz Terajima, Jing Yang

  We draw on the Canadian experience to examine how monetary and macroprudential policies interact and possibly complement each other in achieving their respective price and financial stability objectives.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Financial stability, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E3, E37, E5, E52, E58, E6, E61, G, G0, G01, G2, G21, G28

• How foreign central banks can affect liquidity in the Government of Canada bond market

  Staff Analytical Note 2024-26 Patrick Aldridge, Jabir Sandhu, Sofia Tchamova

  We find that foreign central banks own a large share of Government of Canada (GoC) bonds and tend to hold their positions for longer than other types of asset managers. This buy-and-hold behaviour could offer benefits. For example, foreign central banks may be less likely than other asset managers to sell bonds and add to strains on market liquidity in periods of turmoil. However, foreign central banks’ buy-and-hold behaviour combined with their minimal lending of GoC bonds in securities-financing markets, as observed in our available data, can potentially lower liquidity because fewer GoC bonds are available for others to transact in secondary markets. Indeed, we find that higher levels of foreign central banks’ GoC bond holdings are related to lower liquidity.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Exchange rates, Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial stability, Foreign reserves management, International financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): E, E5, E58, F, F3, F30, F31, G, G0, G01, G1, G11, G12, G15, G2, G23

• Preferences, Monetary Policy and Household Inflation

  Staff Working Paper 2024-45 Geoffrey R. Dunbar

  I quantify the importance of changes in household preferences on household inflation rates using 11 years of scanner data for 11,000 US households. My results suggest that changes in household preferences are an important driver of inflation dynamics at the household level.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, E, E5, E52, E58