Staff research

After the war in the Middle East began, futures markets hinted at how long oil prices could stay above their pre-war levels. Options on those futures further reveal how investors see the range and balance of risks around future oil prices—which helps central banks assess risks to inflation.

This note uses detailed expenditure data to decompose Canadian inflation into supply- and demand-driven components. The analysis sheds light on the drivers of post-pandemic inflation and shows that monetary policy primarily affects and responds to demand-driven inflation.

How do import tariffs affect retail prices? We combine daily product-level posted prices from seven major Canadian retailers with product-level tariff exposure to estimate tariff effects. Prices of tariffed goods rose gradually, peaking at 6% after three months, implying pass-through of roughly one quarter of the 25% tariff.

This paper reviews recent efforts to monitor and assess systemic risk in the Canadian financial system and outlines a framework for future system-wide stress testing.

Using simulations of the Bank of Canada’s projection model, we assess inflation risks from greater supply-shock volatility and show that monetary policy faces sharper trade-offs, as stabilizing inflation increasingly comes at the cost of weaker real activity.

Amid heightened Canada–US trade tensions in 2025, financial markets showed signs that investors had greater difficulty anticipating near-term Bank of Canada interest rate decisions. We look at the Overnight Index Swap prices and intraday Government of Canada yields to identify the main driver of uncertainty around interest rate decisions.

How do central bank crisis interventions calm market fears? Using options data, we measure the perceived risk of large asset price drops across horizons from two weeks to ten years. Studying the Fed's response to the 2020 turmoil, we find asset purchases reduce short-term fears while interest rate actions shape long-term expectations.

We present the annual update of the Bank of Canada staff estimates for global potential output growth. These estimates served as key inputs to the analysis supporting the April 2026 Monetary Policy Report.

Growth in potential output is expected to drop from 2.3% in 2025 to 1.2% in 2026 given slowing population growth, US tariffs and trade policy uncertainty. It is then estimated to pick up to an average of 1.5% over 2027–29 as strengthening business and government investment supports trend labour productivity (TLP). Gradual adoption of artificial intelligence is also expected to lift TLP growth over the projection horizon.

This paper examines how climate change affects income inequality across US states. Using a new climate-inequality VAR and a century of daily temperature data, it shows that shifts across the full temperature distribution—not just average warming—have diverse effects on within-state inequality.