E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics

• Central Bank Digital Currency and Monetary Policy

  Staff working paper 2018-36 Mohammad Davoodalhosseini

  Many central banks are contemplating whether to issue central bank digital currency. This piece explores the implications as well as potential motivators of such a step.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, E5, E50 Research Theme(s): Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework and transmission, Monetary policy tools and implementation, Money and payments, Digital assets and fintech

• Following the Money: Evidence for the Portfolio Balance Channel of Quantitative Easing

  Staff working paper 2018-33 Itay Goldstein, Jonathan Witmer, Jing Yang

  Recent research suggests that quantitative easing (QE) may affect a broad range of asset prices through a portfolio balance channel. Using novel security-level holding data of individual US mutual funds, we establish evidence that portfolio rebalancing occurred both within and across funds.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): E, E5, E58, G, G2, G23 Research Theme(s): Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework and transmission, Monetary policy tools and implementation

• Sources of Borrowing and Fiscal Multipliers

  Staff working paper 2018-32 Romanos Priftis, Srecko Zimic

  This paper finds that debt-financed government spending multipliers vary considerably depending on the location of the debt buyer. In a sample of 33 countries, we find that government spending multipliers are larger when government purchases are financed by issuing debt to foreign investors (non-residents), compared with when government purchases are financed by issuing debt to home investors (residents).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): E, E2, E6, E62, F, F4, F41, H, H3 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Economic models, Monetary policy, Real economy and forecasting, Structural challenges, International trade, finance and competitiveness

• Assessing the Impact of Demand Shocks on the US Term Premium

  Staff discussion paper 2018-7 Russell Barnett, Konrad Zmitrowicz

  During and after the Great Recession of 2008–09, conventional monetary policy in the United States and many other advanced economies was constrained by the effective lower bound (ELB) on nominal interest rates. Several central banks implemented large-scale asset purchase (LSAP) programs, more commonly known as quantitative easing or QE, to provide additional monetary stimulus.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E5, E52, E58, E6, E61, E65, G, G1, G12 Research Theme(s): Financial markets and funds management, Market functioning, Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework and transmission, Monetary policy tools and implementation

• A Look Inside the Box: Combining Aggregate and Marginal Distributions to Identify Joint Distributions

  Staff working paper 2018-29 Marie-Hélène Felt

  This paper proposes a method for estimating the joint distribution of two or more variables when only their marginal distributions and the distribution of their aggregates are observed. Nonparametric identification is achieved by modelling dependence using a latent common-factor structure.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): C, C1, C14, D, D1, D14, E, E4, E41 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Econometric, statistical and computational methods, Money and payments, Cash and bank notes

• Bitcoin Awareness and Usage in Canada: An Update

  Staff analytical note 2018-23 Christopher Henry, Kim Huynh, Gradon Nicholls

  The results of our 2017 Bitcoin Omnibus Survey (December 12 to 15, 2017) when compared with those from 2016 show that Bitcoin “awareness” increased from 64 to 85 per cent, while ownership increased from 2.9 to 5.0 per cent. Most Bitcoin purchasers are using the cryptocurrency as an investment and not as a means of payment for goods or services.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes JEL Code(s): C, C1, C12, E, E4 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Econometric, statistical and computational methods, Money and payments, Cash and bank notes, Digital assets and fintech

• The Neutral Rate in Canada: 2018 Estimates

  Staff analytical note 2018-22 Xin Scott Chen, José Dorich

  The neutral nominal policy rate serves as a benchmark for assessing the degree of monetary stimulus and provides a medium- to long-run anchor for the policy rate. Since quantitative measures of the neutral rate are subject to considerable uncertainty, Bank staff rely on four different approaches to estimate the Canadian neutral rate.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes JEL Code(s): E, E4, E40, E43, E5, E50, E52, E58, F, F4, F41 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Economic models, Monetary policy, Monetary policy framework and transmission

• Bootstrapping Mean Squared Errors of Robust Small-Area Estimators: Application to the Method-of-Payments Data

  Staff working paper 2018-28 Valéry Dongmo Jiongo, Pierre Nguimkeu

  This paper proposes a new bootstrap procedure for mean squared errors of robust small-area estimators. We formally prove the asymptotic validity of the proposed bootstrap method and examine its finite sample performance through Monte Carlo simulations.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): C, C1, C13, C15, C8, C83, E, E4, E41 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Econometric, statistical and computational methods, Money and payments, Cash and bank notes

• Swedish Riksbank Notes and Enskilda Bank Notes: Lessons for Digital Currencies

  Staff working paper 2018-27 Ben Fung, Scott Hendry, Warren E. Weber

  This paper examines the experience of Sweden with government notes and private bank notes to determine how well the Swedish experience corresponds to that of Canada and the United States. Sweden is important to study because it has had government notes in circulation for more than 350 years, and it had government notes before private bank notes.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, E42, E5, E58 Research Theme(s): Money and payments, Cash and bank notes, Digital assets and fintech

• Reconciling Jaimovich-Rebelo Preferences, Habit in Consumption and Labor Supply

  Staff working paper 2018-26 Tom D. Holden, Paul Levine, Jonathan Swarbrick

  This note studies a form of a utility function of consumption with habit and leisure that (a) is compatible with long-run balanced growth, (b) hits a steady-state observed target for hours worked and (c) is consistent with micro-econometric evidence for the inter-temporal elasticity of substitution and the Frisch elasticity of labor supply.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E24 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Economic models, Monetary policy, Real economy and forecasting, Structural challenges, Demographics and labour supply