Olena Kostyshyna is a Principal Researcher in the Canadian Economic Analysis (CEA) Department. Her research interests include macroeconomics, labour economics, experimental economics and survey expectations. Prior to joining the Bank, Olena held academic position at the Portland State University in the USA. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Simon Fraser University.
Using the microdata underlying the Canadian consumer price index, we study how often and by how much firms changed their prices during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that the surge in inflation was mainly associated with retailers raising prices much more often than before. We also find that more recently, corporate price-setting behaviour appears to be approaching pre-pandemic norms.
We assess the complex macroeconomic implications of Canada’s recent population increases. We find that newcomers significantly boost the non-inflationary, potential growth of the economy, but existing imbalances in the housing sector may be exacerbated. Greater housing supply is needed to complement the long-term economic benefits of population growth.
Underlying wage growth has fallen short of what would be consistent with an economy operating with little or no slack. While many factors could explain this weakness, the availability of additional labour resources from informal (“gig”) work—not fully captured in standard measures of employment and hours worked—may play a role.
The literature highlights that labour market churn, including job-to-job transitions, is a key element of wage growth. Using microdata from the Labour Force Survey, we compute measures of labour market churn and compare these with pre-crisis averages to assess implications for wage growth.
This note examines the relatively subdued pace of wage growth in Canada since the commodity price decline in 2014 and assesses whether the weakness is attributable to cyclical (e.g., labour market slack) or structural factors (e.g., resource reallocation and demographic change).
In this note, we provide a brief comparison of the recent developments in the labour markets in Canada and the United States. Our analysis indicates that slack remains in the Canadian labour market, while the US labour market is close to full employment.
We analyze micro-level data from the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations through the lens of a heterogeneous-expectations model to study how inflation expectations form over the business cycle. We provide new insights into how households form expectations, documenting that forecasting behaviours, attention and noise in beliefs vary across socio-demographic groups and correlate with views about monetary policy.
We study food inflation rates for Canadian households during periods of low and high inflation from 2012Q4 to 2023Q4. Households experienced more varied inflation rates during the recent high inflation. Cumulative food inflation has been 2.2 percentage points higher for lower-income households than for highest-income households since the inflation surge.
We quantitively assess the risks of a wage-price spiral occurring in Canada over history. We find the risk of a wage-price spiral increases when the inflation expectations become unanchored and the credibility of central banks declines.
We examine the value of direct communication to households about inflation and the uncertainty around inflation statistics. All types of information about inflation are effective at immediately managing inflation expectations, with information about outlooks being more effective and relevant than that about recent inflation and Bank targets.
This paper examines household-level data from the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations (CSCE) to understand households’ expectations about price and wage inflation, how those expectations link to views about labour market conditions and the subsequent impact on households’ outlook for real spending growth.
How should central banks design monetary policy in stable times and during recessions? We run a horse race between five monetary policy frameworks in an experimental laboratory to assess how well the different approaches can manage the public’s expectations and stabilize the economy.
The number of workers who hold more than one job (a.k.a. multiple jobholders) has increased recently in Canada. While this seems to echo the view that non-standard work arrangements are becoming pervasive, the increase has in fact been trivial compared with the long-run rise of multiple jobholding that has occurred since the mid-1970s.
We assess the importance of downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) in Canada using both firm- and worker-level microdata. In particular, we analyze employer-level administrative data from the Major Wage Settlements (MWS) and household-based survey data from the Survey of Labour Income Dynamics (SLID).
We conduct experiments with human subjects in a model with a positive production externality in which productivity is a non-decreasing function of the average level of employment of other firms.
“On the Evolution of Multiple Jobholding in Canada” (with Etienne Lale), Canadian Journal of Economics, Vol. 55 (2), p. 1095-1134, May 2022.
"Are Sunspots Learnable? An Experimental Investigation in a Simple Macroeconomic Model" (with Jasmina Arifovic and George Evans), Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Vol. 110, p. 1 -21, January 2020.
“Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in Canada: Evidence from Micro-level Data” (with D. Brouillette and N. Kyui). 2018. Canadian Journal of Economics. 51(3), pages 968-1002.
