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2333 result(s)
December 23, 2004

Bank of Canada Lender-of-Last-Resort Policies

Financial System Review - December 2004

The Bank of Canada has distinct roles as a lender of last resort. This article outlines how and under what circumstances the Bank can routinely provide liquidity to facilitate payment settlement, as well as the various ways it can respond in more exceptional situations.
Content Type(s): Publications, Financial System Review articles Topic(s): Financial stability, Lender of last resort, Payment clearing and settlement systems
December 23, 2004

A Survey of the Price-Setting Behaviour of Canadian Companies

Bank of Canada Review - Winter 2004-2005 David Amirault, Carolyn Kwan, Gordon Wilkinson
To better understand price-setting behaviour in the Canadian economy, the Bank of Canada's regional offices surveyed a representative sample of 170 firms between July 2002 and March 2003. The authors discuss the reasons behind the survey, the methodology used to develop the questionnaire and conduct the interviews, and summarize the results. The study also assessed several explanations for holding prices steady despite market pressures for a change. The survey findings indicate that prices in Canada are relatively flexible and have become more flexible over the past decade. Price stickiness was generally found to originate in firms' fears of antagonizing customers or disturbing the goodwill or reputation developed with them. A detailed discussion of the results includes a consideration of their implications for monetary policy.
Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Monetary policy transmission

An Empirical Analysis of the Canadian Term Structure of Zero-Coupon Interest Rates

Staff Working Paper 2004-48 David Bolder, Adam Metzler, Grahame Johnson
Zero-coupon interest rates are the fundamental building block of fixed-income mathematics, and as such have an extensive number of applications in both finance and economics.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets, Interest rates JEL Code(s): C, C0, C6, E, E4, G, G1
November 24, 2004

Asset Prices and Monetary Policy: A Canadian Perspective on the Issues

Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2004 Jack Selody, Carolyn A. Wilkins
The issue addressed in this article is the extent to which monetary policy in Canada should respond to asset-price bubbles. The article concludes that maintaining low and stable consumer price inflation is the best contribution that monetary policy can make to promoting economic and financial stability, even when the economy experiences asset-price bubbles. In extreme circumstances—when an asset-price bubble is well identified and likely to have significant costs to the economy when it bursts—monetary policy might better maintain low and stable consumer price inflation by leaning against a particular bubble even though it may mean that inflation deviates temporarily from its target. Such a strategy might reduce the risk that a crash in asset prices could lead to a recession and to inflation markedly below target in the longer run. The circumstances where this strategy is possible will be rare because economists are far from being able to determine consistently and reliably when leaning against a particular bubble is likely to do more harm than good. Housing-price bubbles should be a greater concern for Canadian monetary policy than equity-price bubbles, since rising housing prices are more likely to reflect excessively easy domestic credit conditions than are equity prices, which are largely determined in global markets.
Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Inflation targets, Monetary and financial indicators, Monetary policy framework
November 23, 2004

Real Return Bonds: Monetary Policy Credibility and Short-Term Inflation Forecasting

Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2004 Christopher Reid, Frédéric Dion, Ian Christensen
The break-even inflation rate (BEIR) is calculated by comparing the yields on conventional and Real Return Bonds. Defined as the average rate of inflation that equates the expected returns on these two bonds, the BEIR has the potential to contain useful information about long-run inflation expectations. Yet the BEIR has been higher, on average, and more variable than survey measures of inflation expectations, which may be explained by the effects of premiums and distortions embedded in the BEIR. Because of the difficulty in accounting for these distortions, the BEIR should not be given a large weight as a measure of long-run inflation expectations at this time. However, as the Real Return Bond market continues to develop, the BEIR should become a more useful indicator of inflation expectations. At present, it demonstrates no clear advantage over survey measures and even past inflation rates in forecasting near-term inflation.
Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Interest rates, Market structure and pricing
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