November 14, 1997
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768
result(s)
November 13, 1997
Statistical measures of the trend rate of inflation
As a guide for the conduct of monetary policy, most central banks make use of a trend inflation index similar to that employed by the Bank of Canada: the CPI excluding food, energy, and the effect of indirect taxes. In addition to their basic reference index, some central banks regularly publish statistical measures of the trend rate of inflation. The method used for producing these measures is, for the most part, based on the hypothesis that extreme price fluctuations generally reflect temporary shocks to the inflation rate, rather than its underlying trend. In this paper, the author offers a broad survey of studies on the measurement of trend inflation that have been published by the Bank of Canada and presents the results of the most recent work on the subject. Particular attention is paid to two statistical measures that the Bank follows more closely than other measures; namely, the CPIX, a price index that excludes eight of the most volatile CPI components, and CPIW, a measure that retains all the components of the overall index but gives a lower weighting to the most volatile.
Content Type(s):
Publications,
Bank of Canada Review articles
Topic(s):
Inflation and prices
A Measure of Underlying Inflation in the United States
Staff Working Paper 1997-20
Iris Claus
A monetary authority with the primary objective of price stability has to distinguish between temporary price shocks and persistent shocks to the rate of inflation. A measure of underlying inflation, therefore, has an important role to play as a guideline for monetary policy.
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Staff working papers
Topic(s):
Inflation and prices,
International topics
JEL Code(s):
E,
E3,
E31
Les marchés du travail régionaux : une comparaison entre le Canada et les États-Unis
Staff Working Paper 1997-17
Mario Lefebvre
The purpose of this study is to compare the behaviour of regional labour markets in Canada and the United States. The study shows that the degree of persistence of unemployment is significantly higher in the provinces of Canada than it is in the various American regions.
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Staff working papers
Topic(s):
Labour markets,
Recent economic and financial developments
JEL Code(s):
E,
E2,
E24
August 14, 1997
The fiscal impact of privatization in Canada
Privatization—the transfer of activities from the public to the private sector—gained international prominence in the 1980s because of the need to reduce budget deficits and growing concerns about the efficiency of state-owned enterprises and government bureaucracies. This article examines privatization in Canada and its effect on governments' fiscal positions. Privatization has generally been less rapid and extensive in Canada than elsewhere, partly because of the comparatively moderate size of our public sector. Nevertheless, federal, provincial, and municipal governments have increasingly reduced their direct involvement in the Canadian economy by selling Crown corporations, contracting with private firms to deliver public services, and transferring the development of public infrastructure projects to the private sector. The fiscal impact of privatizing Crown corporations varies with such factors as the profitability of the enterprise, the size of the government's initial investment, and past write-downs. In general, when privatizations are part of a broader effort to improve public finances, they can contribute to fiscal consolidation by reducing budgetary requirements and debt levels. When services and infrastructure projects are privatized, it is expected that more efficient private sector management will reduce government expenditures. For example, a private consortium may be better able to manage the financial risks involved in building an infrastructure facility, such as cost overruns or the withdrawal of contractors, than the public sector. The key to raising efficiency and lowering costs, however, is competition, not privatization per se. Therefore, the cost savings arising from the privatization of services or public works depend crucially on the terms of the contract. Overall, when structured to improve economic efficiency, privatization is likely to enhance the economy's performance, thereby producing long-term economic and budgetary gains.
Content Type(s):
Publications,
Bank of Canada Review articles
Topic(s):
Fiscal policy
Measurement of the Output Gap: A Discussion of Recent Research at the Bank of Canada
Technical Report No. 79
Pierre St-Amant,
Simon van Norden
In this paper, we discuss some methodologies for estimating potential output and the output gap that have recently been studied at the Bank of Canada. The assumptions and econometric techniques used by the different methodologies are discussed in turn, and applications to Canadian data are presented.
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Technical reports
Topic(s):
Potential output
JEL Code(s):
D,
D2,
D24
The Effects of Budget Rules on Fiscal Performance and Macroeconomic Stabilization
Staff Working Paper 1997-15
Jonathan Millar
Budget rules can be defined as legislated or constitutional constraints on government deficits, taxes, expenditures, or debt. This paper reviews the budget rules recently legislated in six of Canada's provinces and both of its territories, as well as budget rules in other OECD countries.
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Staff working papers
Topic(s):
Fiscal policy
JEL Code(s):
E,
E6,
E62,
H,
H3,
H6,
H61
Menu Costs, Relative Prices, and Inflation: Evidence for Canada
Staff Working Paper 1997-14
Robert Amano,
Tiff Macklem
The menu-cost models of price adjustment developed by Ball and Mankiw (1994;1995) predict that short-run movements in inflation should be positively related to the skewness and the variance of the distribution of disaggregated relative-price shocks in each period. We test these predictions on Canadian data using the distribution of changes in disaggregated producer prices to measure the skewness and standard deviation of relative-price shocks.
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Staff working papers
Topic(s):
Inflation and prices,
Monetary policy framework
JEL Code(s):
C,
C5,
C52,
E,
E3,
E31
May 14, 1997
The changing business activities of banks in Canada
Over the last 30 years, the business mix of banks in Canada has changed significantly. Progress in information-processing technology, legislative changes, and market forces have combined to blur the traditional distinctions between banks and other financial institutions and have allowed banks to offer a much wider range of products and services. In this article, the author reviews the expansion of bank lending to households over this period and their recent movement into personal wealth management. While these trends were facilitated by revisions to legislation, they also reflected the changing needs of the "baby boom" generation, first as home-buyers and, more recently, as middle-aged investors. On the commercial and corporate side, banks reacted to the rapid expansion of securities markets (and to the reduced demand for intermediation by both lenders/depositors and borrowers) by moving into investment banking, after legislative changes opened this business to them in the late 1980s. They also used their expertise in credit assessment and risk management to provide credit guarantees and to act as counterparties and intermediaries in derivatives markets. Notable in this broadening of bank activities has been their more recent entry into the trust, mutual fund, and retail brokerage business. The banks have also made preliminary forays into insurance. The expansion of off-balance-sheet activities has made fee income an increasingly important part of bank earnings. The article also looks at the emerging tools and techniques that will most likely transform the structure of banking in the future.
Content Type(s):
Publications,
Bank of Canada Review articles
Topic(s):
Financial institutions
May 13, 1997
Capacity constraints, price adjustment, and monetary policy
The short-run Phillips curve describes a positive short-run relationship between the level of economic activity and inflation. When the level of demand in the economy as a whole runs ahead of the level of output that the economy can supply in the short run, price pressures increase and inflation rises. This article reviews the origins of the short-run Phillips curve with particular emphasis on the long-standing idea that the shape of this curve may be non-linear, with inflation becoming more sensitive to changes in output when the cycle of economic activity is high than when it is low. This type of non-linearity in the short-run Phillips curve, which is typically motivated by the effects of capacity constraints that limit the ability of the economy to expand in the short run, has recently attracted renewed attention. The article surveys recent research that finds some evidence of this type of non-linearity in the Phillips curve in Canada and considers the potential implications for monetary policy.
Content Type(s):
Publications,
Bank of Canada Review articles
Topic(s):
Inflation and prices,
Monetary policy transmission,
Potential output