Bio

Stéphanie Houle is a Senior Economist in the Canadian Economic Analysis Department. Her research interests include the Digital Economy, Firm Dynamics, applications of Machine Learning to Economics, and International Trade and Finance. Stephanie holds a PhD in Economics from McMaster University.

Research Field(s): Digital Economy Firm Dynamics International Trade and Finance Productivity Technological Change

Staff research

Potential output in Canada: 2026 assessment

Staff analytical paper 2026-19 Alex Chernoff, Christopher Hajzler, Stéphanie Houle, Gabriella Ruggero, Olena Senyuta, Karanbir Sohal, Walter Steingress, Temel Taskin
Growth in potential output is expected to drop from 2.3% in 2025 to 1.2% in 2026 given slowing population growth, US tariffs and trade policy uncertainty. It is then estimated to pick up to an average of 1.5% over 2027–29 as strengthening business and government investment supports trend labour productivity (TLP). Gradual adoption of artificial intelligence is also expected to lift TLP growth over the projection horizon.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical paper JEL Code(s): E, E2, E3, E4, E5 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Economic models, Monetary policy, Real economy and forecasting, Structural challenges, Demographics and labour supply

Potential output in Canada: 2025 assessment

Staff analytical note 2025-14 Selam Abraham, Dany Brouillette, Alex Chernoff, Christopher Hajzler, Stéphanie Houle, Mark Kim, Temel Taskin
We explore two scenarios for potential output growth to gain insights into the economic consequences associated with different possible trade policies. Scenario 1 includes limited US tariffs on Canadian exports. Scenario 2 adds a permanent, broad-based 25% increase in US tariffs on imports from all countries excluding Canada and Mexico.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes JEL Code(s): E, E2, E3, E4, E5 Research Theme(s): Monetary policy, Real economy and forecasting, Structural challenges, Demographics and labour supply, Digitalization and productivity

Potential output in Canada: 2024 assessment

Staff analytical note 2024-11 Tessa Devakos, Christopher Hajzler, Stéphanie Houle, Craig Johnston, Antoine Poulin-Moore, Ron Rautu, Temel Taskin
We expect that potential output in Canada will grow by 2.3% and 2.5% in 2023 and 2024, respectively, and average slightly below 1.7% by 2027 as population growth moderates. Relative to the April 2023 assessment, growth is revised up in 2024, with a larger contribution from trend labour input due to higher-than-anticipated population growth. We revise down our estimates of growth over 2025–26.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes JEL Code(s): E, E2, E3, E4, E5 Research Theme(s): Monetary policy, Real economy and forecasting, Structural challenges, Demographics and labour supply, Digitalization and productivity

Identifying Nascent High-Growth Firms Using Machine Learning

Staff working paper 2023-53 Stéphanie Houle, Ryan Macdonald
Firms that grow rapidly have the potential to usher in new innovations, products or processes (Kogan et al. 2017), become superstar firms (Haltiwanger et al. 2013) and impact the aggregate labour share (Autor et al. 2020; De Loecker et al. 2020). We explore the use of supervised machine learning techniques to identify a population of nascent high-growth firms using Canadian administrative firm-level data.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): C, C5, C55, C8, C81, L, L2, L25 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Econometric, statistical and computational methods, Structural challenges, Digitalization and productivity

Digitalization: Definition and Measurement

Staff discussion paper 2023-20 Guyllaume Faucher, Stéphanie Houle
This paper provides an overview of digitalization and its economic implications. We assess the scope of digitalization in Canada as well as the challenges related to its measurement.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers JEL Code(s): E, E0, E01, O, O3, O33, O5, O51 Research Theme(s): Models and tools, Economic models, Structural challenges, Digitalization and productivity

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Journal publications

Published papers

  • Houle, S. and R. Macdonald. 2025. “Identifying and Predicting Nascent High-Growth Firms Using Machine Learning.” Canadian Public Policy 51 (S1): 41-60.
  • "Houle, S., P. Pujolas and M. Veall. 2019. "The Curious Incident of Luxury Imports during the Top-Income Surge." Economics Bulletin 39 (2): 1479-1487.