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Responses to the summer Business Outlook Survey suggest that business activity is continuing to gain momentum, buoyed by indications that domestic demand will improve further. Positive business prospects are increasingly widespread across regions and sectors.

Survey results for 2017Q2 suggest that overall business-lending conditions were essentially unchanged for the fourth consecutive quarter.

While greater global financial integration is beneficial, the authors discuss how foreign capital inflows can also facilitate the buildup of domestic vulnerabilities and potentially lead to destabilizing reversals. Canada’s current international investment position is typical of advanced economies and will likely continue to act as an economic stabilizer. However, the growth and composition of Canada’s international investment position warrant continued monitoring.

This report reviews the use of quantitative tools to gauge market participants’ assessment of banking system resilience. These measures complement traditional balance-sheet metrics and suggest that markets consider large Canadian banks to be better placed to weather adverse shocks than banks in other advanced economies. Compared with regulatory capital ratios, however, the measures suggest less improvement in banking system resilience since the pre-crisis period.