Bio

Yang Zhang is the Director of the Model Development Division of the Canadian Economic Analysis (CEA) department, effective since October 2019. In this capacity, she leads efforts to develop and integrate state-of-the-art economic models for the analysis of the Canadian economy and for providing monetary policy advice. Her responsibilities include leading high-quality research that supports the renewal of the Bank’s monetary policy framework. In this position, Ms. Zhang also collaborates closely with the academic and the international central banking communities. She is involved in the development of the next generation of Bank’s monetary policy models.

Ms. Zhang joined the Bank in 2007 as an Economist in the Canadian Projection & Policy Analysis Division of CEA. In this role she provided key inputs into the Staff Economic Projection, produced risk analyses as well as contributed to policy discussions. In 2009, she became a Senior Economist in the Model Development Division and held increasingly senior positions, recently as the Principal Economist of the team.

Ms. Zhang has deep knowledge and expertise in model development and monetary policy analysis. Her recent work focuses on modelling unconventional monetary policies and alternative expectation formations in DSGE models and the development of Agent-Based models. She also conducts research to support social good such as health and economic equality, using advanced computational methods including machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Born in China, Ms. Zhang holds a PhD in Economics from University of Ottawa.

Research Field(s): Macroeconomics Monetary Economics
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Staff discussion papers

Inventories, Stockouts, and ToTEM

Staff Discussion Paper 2010-8 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Yang Zhang
Inventory investment is an important component of the Canadian business cycle. Despite its small average size – less than 1 per cent of output – it exhibits volatile procyclical fluctuations, accounting for almost one-third of output variance.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32

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Technical reports

ToTEM II: An Updated Version of the Bank of Canada’s Quarterly Projection Model

Technical Report No. 100 José Dorich, Michael K. Johnston, Rhys R. Mendes, Stephen Murchison, Yang Zhang
This report provides a detailed technical description of an updated version of the Terms-of-Trade Economic Model (ToTEM II), which replaced ToTEM (Murchison and Rennison 2006) in June 2011 as the Bank of Canada’s quarterly projection model for Canada.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models JEL Code(s): E, E1, E17, E2, E20, E3, E30, E4, E40, E5, E50, F, F4, F41

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Bank publications

Bank of Canada Review articles

August 18, 2011

Introducing Multiple Interest rates in ToTEM

Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2011 José Dorich, Rhys R. Mendes, Yang Zhang
This article describes changes to the structure of ToTEM—the Bank of Canada’s main model for projection and policy analysis—that allow an independent role for long-term interest rates, as well as for the risk spreads that lead to differences in the interest rates faced by households, firms and the government. These changes broaden the range of policy questions that the model can address and improve its ability to explain data. The authors use the model to simulate the effects of shocks to the risk spreads on interest rates similar to those that occurred during the recent financial crisis. They also use the model to assess the macroeconomic impact of higher requirements for bank capital and liquidity.
Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Economic models, Financial system regulation and policies, Interest rates

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Journal publications

Other research