February 3, 2016
Opening Statement before the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce
Stephen Murchison discusses the causes and economic impact of movements in the Canadian dollar exchange rate.
Bio
Stephen Murchison was appointed Advisor to the Governor effective May 4, 2015. In this role, Mr. Murchison chairs the Steering Committee for the Bank’s Sparks at Bank publication. In addition, he provides advice and leadership on various monetary policy issues and on modelling. He also chairs the G7 working group on climate change mitigation and the G7 sub-group on quantum technologies, bringing members together to align priorities, share expertise and develop practical approaches to emerging risks.
Mr. Murchison joined the Bank in 1997 as an economist in the Research Department’s Canadian Projection and Model Development division, now Canadian Economic Analysis (CEA). From 1999 to 2001, he worked at the Department of Finance. He returned to the Bank in 2001 and held senior roles in CEA, culminating as Managing Director from August 2013 until his current appointment. In 2019 and 2020, Mr. Murchison went on a secondment to the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.
Born in Barrie, Ontario, Mr. Murchison holds a master’s degree in economics from Wilfrid Laurier University.
Speeches
Staff research
Non-homothetic Preferences and the Demand Channel of Inflation
An alternative to the standard CES aggregator, based on non-homothetic household preferences, is proposed. Specifically, the elasticity of substitution between goods declines during periods of strong per-capita consumption and vice versa, giving firms an incentive to adjust their desired markup in response to the state of demand. Empirical evidence favouring a direct role for per-capita consumption demand in inflation determination for Canada is presented.
Variable-rate mortgages with fixed payments: Examining trigger rates
We estimate the share of variable-rate mortgages with fixed payments that reached the so-called trigger rate—the interest rate at which mortgage payments no longer cover the principal. Amid rising interest rates, this share was close to 50% at the end of October 2022 and could potentially reach 65% in 2023.
Monetary Policy Under Uncertainty: Practice Versus Theory
For central banks, conducting policy in an environment of uncertainty is a daily fact of life. This uncertainty can take many forms, ranging from incomplete knowledge of the correct economic model and data to future economic and geopolitical events whose precise magnitudes and effects cannot be known with certainty.
Bank publications
Bank of Canada Review articles
November 13, 2014
Should Forward Guidance Be Backward-Looking?
When constrained by the zero lower bound, some central banks have communicated a threshold that must be met before short-term interest rates would be permitted to rise. Simulation results for Canada show that forward guidance that is conditional on achieving a price-level threshold can theoretically raise demand and inflation expectations by significantly more than unemployment thresholds. This superior performance is attributable to the fact that the price-level threshold depends on past inflation outcomes. In practice, however, history-dependent thresholds such as this might be more challenging for central banks to communicate.
August 19, 2010
Price-Level Targeting and Relative-Price Shocks
Stephen Murchison reviews the findings of recent Bank of Canada research on the relative merits of inflation targeting and price-level targeting (PLT) for a small open economy, such as Canada's, that is susceptible to large and persistent terms-of-trade shocks.
March 9, 2010
Monetary Policy Rules in an Uncertain Environment
This article examines recent research on the influence of various forms of economic uncertainty on the performance of different classes of monetary policy rules: from simple rules to fully optimal monetary policy under commitment. The authors explain why uncertainty matters in the design of monetary policy rules and provide quantitative examples from the recent literature. They also present results for several policy rules in ToTEM, the Bank of Canada's main model for projection and analysis, including rules that respond to price level, rather than to inflation.
November 11, 2009
Declining Inflation Persistence in Canada: Causes and Consequences
The persistence of both core and total consumer price index inflation in Canada has declined significantly since the 1980s. In addition to providing up-to-date estimates of inflation persistence, this article examines possible reasons for the decline suggested in the literature. The role played by monetary policy, through its effect on price- and wage-setting behaviour, is distinguished from possible changes to the structure of the economy that are independent of monetary policy. The authors also discuss the implications for monetary policy of low structural persistence in inflation, including the choice of an inflation-targeting regime versus a price-level-targeting regime.
December 11, 2007
The Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates: Implications for Monetary Policy
One of the most important factors that must be considered if countries are thinking about lowering the target level of inflation much below 2 per cent is the zero interest bound. Targeting inflation rates that are too low, the authors note, may restrict the ability of monetary policy to respond to economic shocks by limiting the amount by which interest rates can be eased.
October 22, 2006
ToTEM: The Bank of Canada's New Projection and Policy-Analysis Model
The Terms-of-Trade Economic Model, or ToTEM, replaced the Quarterly Projection Model (QPM) in December 2005 as the Bank's principal projection and policy-analysis model for the Canadian economy. Benefiting from advances in economic modelling and computer power, ToTEM builds on the strengths of QPM, allowing for optimizing behaviour on the part of firms and households, both in and out of steady state, in a multi-product environment. The authors explain the motivation behind the development of ToTEM, provide an overview of the model and its calibration, and present several simulations to illustrate its key properties, concluding with some indications of how the model is expected to evolve going forward.
The Economy, Plain and Simple
September 28, 2018
The benefits of freer trade
Freer trade lowers prices and boosts economies, yet not everyone benefits equally. Fair policies are essential for balanced growth and widespread prosperity.