Browse research

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.

This paper empirically assesses the effectiveness of the Bank of Canada's term Purchase and Resale Agreement (PRA) facility in reducing short-term bank funding pressures, as measured by the CDOR-OIS spread.

Using an error-correction model (ECM) framework, the authors attempt to quantify the degree of disequilibrium in Canadian housing stock over the period 1961–2008 for the national aggregate and over 1981–2008 for the provinces.

To better understand the dynamics of the Chinese economy and its interaction with the global economy, the authors incorporate China into an existing model for the G-3 economies (i.e., the United States, the euro area, and Japan), paying particular attention to modelling the exchange rate and monetary policy in China.

In theory, nominal exchange rate movements can lead to “expenditure switching” when they generate changes in the relative prices of goods across countries. This paper explores whether the expenditure-switching role of exchange rates has changed in the current episode of significant global imbalances.

Bank of Canada published a report establishing a set of principles to guide the extraordinary liquidity interventions it was making in response to the systemic shocks buffeting the Canadian financial system. These principles provided a framework for maintaining consistency between the Bank’s actions and its responsibilities as lender of last resort to the financial system, while allowing sufficient fl exibility to respond to the unique challenges of the crisis.

This paper studies the impact of international capital flows on asset prices through risk premia. We investigate whether foreign purchases of U.S. Treasury securities significantly contributed to the decline in excess returns on long-term bonds between 1995 and 2008.

Based on recent research, this article discusses three ways that oil-futures prices can improve our understanding of current conditions and future prospects in the global market for crude oil. First, the response of the oil-futures curve can be used to identify the persistence of oil-price shocks and to obtain an indicator of the rate at which they will diminish. Second, the spread between the current futures price and the spot price of oil can be interpreted as an indicator of the precautionary demand for oil. Third, because oil-futures prices are volatile, forecasts of the future spot price of oil using futures prices should be supplemented with other information to improve their accuracy.