The Bank of Canada today maintained its target for the overnight rate at 1 per cent. The Bank Rate is correspondingly 1 1/4 per cent and the deposit rate is 3/4 per cent.
Projections for Canadian economic growth have been increased to 3.1 per cent this year and 2.1 per cent in 2018, with growth of 1.5 per cent forecast for 2019.
We construct an alternative scenario in which trend labour input and business investment are stronger than that expected in the Bank of Canada’s base-case projection in the October 2017 Monetary Policy Report.
This note investigates whether the recent weakness in inflation in Canada can be related to global factors not included in the current staff analytical framework (domestic slack, movements in commodity prices and in the exchange rate). A global common factor for inflation among selected advanced economies appears to contain marginal information for Canadian inflation beyond what is found in movements in commodity prices and the exchange rate.
Since the global financial crisis, core inflation has been persistently below target in most advanced economies. Recently, it has weakened further in several advanced economies despite gradually diminishing slack. This note reviews recent developments in core inflation across advanced economies and identifies distinctive patterns across regions.
To uphold public confidence in the transparency and integrity of its work on behalf of Canadians, the Bank adheres to these principles for Governing Council’s external communications.
The Bank’s internal credit risk assessment abilities are regularly enhanced. In this note, we present a recent innovation that extends the set of market-based indicators used in the credit risk assessment of financial counterparties.
In this note, we find that valuation effects can act as an important stabilizer, strengthening Canada’s net external wealth when its economic outlook worsens relative to that of other countries.