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Staff analytical notes

Staff analytical notes are short articles that focus on topical issues relevant to the current economic and financial context.

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220 result(s)

What Is Restraining Non-Energy Export Growth?

This note summarizes the key findings from Bank of Canada staff analytical work examining the reasons for the recent weakness in Canadian non-energy exports. Canada steadily lost market share in US non-energy imports between 2002 and 2017, mostly reflecting continued and broad-based competitiveness losses.

The Characteristics of Uninsured Mortgages and their Securitization Potential

Staff Analytical Note 2018-24 Adi Mordel, Maria teNyenhuis
Following changes to housing finance policies that target insured mortgages, uninsured mortgage credit has been growing. This robust growth creates a larger pool of mortgages that may be suitable for private-label residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS).

Bitcoin Awareness and Usage in Canada: An Update

Staff Analytical Note 2018-23 Christopher Henry, Kim Huynh, Gradon Nicholls
The results of our 2017 Bitcoin Omnibus Survey (December 12 to 15, 2017) when compared with those from 2016 show that Bitcoin “awareness” increased from 64 to 85 per cent, while ownership increased from 2.9 to 5.0 per cent. Most Bitcoin purchasers are using the cryptocurrency as an investment and not as a means of payment for goods or services.

The Neutral Rate in Canada: 2018 Estimates

Staff Analytical Note 2018-22 Xin Scott Chen, José Dorich
The neutral nominal policy rate serves as a benchmark for assessing the degree of monetary stimulus and provides a medium- to long-run anchor for the policy rate. Since quantitative measures of the neutral rate are subject to considerable uncertainty, Bank staff rely on four different approaches to estimate the Canadian neutral rate.

Readability and the Bank of Canada

Staff Analytical Note 2018-20 Alexandre Deslongchamps
In this note, I assess the readability of Bank of Canada publications using a formula commonly used for this type of evaluation. I find that Bank publications are more difficult to read than the media articles and other content our target audiences likely consume. This suggests that more simple writing can help the Bank better meet its communication objectives.

The Scale and Scope of Online Retail

Staff Analytical Note 2018-19 Alex Chernoff
This paper studies the growth of online retail over the period 1999–2012, using confidential firm-product-level data for Canada. The revenue of online retailers is decomposed into the contributions of product scope (the number of product categories) and product scale (average revenue per product category).

Interest Rate and Renewal Risk for Mortgages

Staff Analytical Note 2018-18 Olga Bilyk, Cameron MacDonald, Brian Peterson
In this note, we explore two types of risk faced by holders of mortgages and home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) in the context of rising interest rates: interest rate risk and renewal risk.

Measuring Vulnerabilities in the Non-Financial Corporate Sector Using Industry- and Firm-Level Data

Staff Analytical Note 2018-17 Timothy Grieder, Michal Lipsitz
Aggregate non-financial corporate debt-to-GDP has been growing rapidly in recent years and is at an all-time high. This growth began in 2011 and accelerated as the oil price shock affected the Canadian economy.

Applying the Wage-Common to Canadian Provinces

Staff Analytical Note 2018-16 Jonathan Lachaine
As at the national level, available sources of hourly wage data for Canadian provinces sometimes send conflicting signals about wage growth. This note has two objectives. First, we develop a common measure of provincial wages (the provincial wage-common) to better capture the underlying wage pressures, reflecting the overall trend across all data sources.
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