E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics

• Alternative Public Spending Rules and Output Volatility

  Staff Working Paper 2002-37 Jean-Paul Lam, William Scarth

  One of the central lessons learned from the Great Depression was that adjusting government spending each year to balance the budget increases the volatility of output.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Economic models, Fiscal policy, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, E58, E6, E62

• An Eclectic Approach to Estimating U.S. Potential GDP

  Staff Working Paper 2002-36 Marc-André Gosselin, René Lalonde

  The authors describe the principal results obtained from a new method applied to the estimation of potential U.S. GDP.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods, Potential output JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, E, E2, E23, E3, E32

• The Impact of Common Currencies on Financial Markets: A Literature Review and Evidence from the Euro Area

  Staff Working Paper 2002-35 Liliane Karlinger

  This paper reviews both the theoretical and empirical literature on the impact of common currencies on financial markets and evaluates the first three years of experience with Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Exchange rate regimes, Financial markets JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, F, F2, F21, F3, F36, G, G1, G15

• Labour Markets, Liquidity, and Monetary Policy Regimes

  Staff Working Paper 2002-32 David Andolfatto, Scott Hendry, Kevin Moran

  We develop an equilibrium model of the monetary policy transmission mechanism that highlights information frictions in the market for money and search frictions in the market for labour.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Monetary policy and uncertainty, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E4, E5

• Inflation Expectations and Learning about Monetary Policy

  Staff Working Paper 2002-30 David Andolfatto, Scott Hendry, Kevin Moran

  Various measures indicate that inflation expectations evolve sluggishly relative to actual inflation. In addition, they often fail conventional tests of unbiasedness.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models JEL Code(s): E, E4, E47, E5, E52, E58

• Exponentials, Polynomials, and Fourier Series: More Yield Curve Modelling at the Bank of Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2002-29 David Bolder, Scott Gusba

  This paper continues the work started by Bolder and Stréliski (1999) and considers two alternative classes of models for extracting zero-coupon and forward rates from a set of observed Government of Canada bond and treasury-bill prices.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets, Interest rates JEL Code(s): C, C0, C6, E, E4, G, G1

• Habit Formation and the Persistence of Monetary Shocks

  Staff Working Paper 2002-27 Hafedh Bouakez, Emanuela Cardia, Francisco Ruge-Murcia

  This paper studies the persistent effects of monetary shocks on output. Previous empirical literature documents this persistence, but standard general-equilibrium models with sticky prices fail to generate output responses beyond the duration of nominal contracts.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E3, E4, E5

• Nominal Rigidities and Monetary Policy in Canada Since 1981

  Staff Working Paper 2002-25 Ali Dib

  This paper develops and estimates a dynamic, stochastic, general-equilibrium model with price and wage stickiness to analyze monetary policy in Canada.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32, E5, E52

• How to Improve Inflation Targeting at the Bank of Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2002-23 Nicholas Rowe

  This paper shows that if the Bank of Canada is optimally adjusting its monetary policy instrument in response to inflation indicators to target 2 per cent inflation at a two-year horizon, then deviations of inflation from 2 per cent represent the Bank's forecast errors, and should be uncorrelated with its information set, which includes two-year lagged values of the instrument and the indicators. Positive or negative correlations are evidence of systematic errors in monetary policy.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Inflation targets, Monetary and financial indicators, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): E, E5

• The Usefulness of Consumer Confidence Indexes in the United States

  Staff Working Paper 2002-22 Brigitte Desroches, Marc-André Gosselin

  This paper assesses the usefulness of consumer confidence indexes in forecasting aggregate consumer spending in the United States.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Domestic demand and components, Economic models, International topics JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, E, E2, E21, E27