Bio

Helen Lao is a principal economist in the United States Division. Prior to joining the International Economic Analysis Department, Helen was a senior economist in the Canadian Economic Analysis Department. Prior to joining the Bank, she worked as an economist at the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer for four years. Helen received her Master of Arts, Economics, from the University of Toronto.


Staff analytical notes

Assessing global potential output growth and the US neutral rate: April 2023

We expect global potential output growth to increase from 2.5% in 2022 to 2.8% by 2026. Compared with the April 2022 staff assessment, global potential output growth is marginally slower. The current range for the US neutral rate is 2% to 3%, unchanged from the last annual assessment.

What do high-frequency expenditure network data reveal about spending and inflation during COVID‑19?

Staff Analytical Note 2020-20 Kim Huynh, Helen Lao, Patrick Sabourin, Angelika Welte
The official consumer price index (CPI) inflation measure, based on a fixed basket set before the COVID 19 pandemic, may not fully reflect what consumers are currently experiencing. We partnered with Statistics Canada to construct a more representative index for the pandemic with weights based on real-time transaction and survey data.

Bending the Curves: Wages and Inflation

As economic slack continues to be absorbed and the labour market tightens, wage growth and inflation could increase faster than expected, which would suggest convexity in their Phillips curves. This note investigates whether there is convexity in the Phillips curves for Canadian wage growth and inflation by testing different empirical approaches over the post-inflation-targeting period.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E3, E31, J, J3

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Staff discussion papers

Predicting Changes in Canadian Housing Markets with Machine Learning

Staff Discussion Paper 2023-21 Johan Brannlund, Helen Lao, Maureen MacIsaac, Jing Yang
We apply two machine learning algorithms to forecast monthly growth of house prices and existing homes sales in Canada. Although the algorithms can sometimes outperform a linear model, the improvement in forecast accuracy is not always statistically significant.

A Comprehensive Evaluation of Measures of Core Inflation in Canada: An Update

Staff Discussion Paper 2019-9 Helen Lao, Ceciline Steyn
We provide an updated evaluation of the value of various measures of core inflation that could be used in the conduct of monetary policy. We find that the Bank of Canada’s current preferred measures of core inflation—CPI-trim, CPI-median and CPI-common—continue to outperform alternative core measures across a range of criteria.

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