Evaluating the Effect of the Bank of Canada's Conditional Commitment Policy Staff Discussion Paper 2010-11 Zhongfang He The author evaluates the effect of the Bank of Canada's conditional commitment regarding the target overnight rate on longer-term market interest rates by taking into account the relationship between interest rates, inflation, and unemployment rates. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Interest rates, Monetary policy implementation, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E4, E5, E6
Asset-Liability Management: An Overview Staff Discussion Paper 2010-10 Yuliya Romanyuk Relevant literature on asset-liability management (ALM) is reviewed and different ALM approaches are discussed that may be of interest to the Bank of Canada for the purpose of modelling the Exchange Fund Account (EFA). Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Foreign reserves management JEL Code(s): G, G1, G11
Inventories in ToTEM Staff Discussion Paper 2010-9 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Yang Zhang ToTEM – the Bank of Canada’s principal projection and policy-analysis model for the Canadian economy – is extended to include inventories. In the model, firms accumulate inventories of finished goods for their role in facilitating the demand for goods. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32
Inventories, Stockouts, and ToTEM Staff Discussion Paper 2010-8 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Yang Zhang 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. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32
Statistical Confidence Intervals for the Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey Staff Discussion Paper 2010-7 Daniel de Munnik While a number of central banks publish their own business conditions indicators that rely on non-random sampling, knowledge about their statistical accuracy has been limited. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Central bank research, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): C, C4, C46, C8, C81
The Fisher BCPI: The Bank of Canada’s New Commodity Price Index Staff Discussion Paper 2010-6 Ilan Kolet, Ryan Macdonald The prices of commodities produced in Canada have important implications for the performance of the Canadian economy and the conduct of monetary policy. The authors explain an important change to the methodology used to construct the Bank of Canada commodity price index (BCPI). Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): C, C1, E, E3
Relative Price Movements and Labour Productivity in Canada: A VAR Analysis Staff Discussion Paper 2010-5 Michael Dolega, David Dupuis, Lise Pichette In recent years, the Canadian economy has been affected by strong movements in relative prices brought about by the surging costs of energy and non-energy commodities, with significant implications for the terms of trade, the exchange rate, and the allocation of resources across Canadian sectors and regions. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Labour markets, Productivity, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E23, E24, O, O4, O47
Prospects for Global Current Account Rebalancing Staff Discussion Paper 2010-4 Kimberly Beaton, Carlos De Resende, René Lalonde, Stephen Snudden The authors use the Bank of Canada's version of the Global Economy Model, a multi-country, multi-sector dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model with an active banking system (the BoC-GEM-FIN), to study the evolution of global current account balances following the recent global financial crisis. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Balance of payments and components, Business fluctuations and cycles, International topics, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, F, F0, F01, F3, F32
Le pouvoir de prévision des indices PMI Staff Discussion Paper 2010-3 Claudia Godbout, Jocelyn Jacob The forecast of world economic growth plays a key role in the conduct of Canadian monetary policy. In this context, the authors study the usefulness of the monthly Purchasing Managers’ Indexes (PMIs) in predicting short-term real GDP growth in the euro area, Japan, the United Kingdom, and China, as well as in the world economy. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, E37, F, F4, F47
Market Expectations and Option Prices: Evidence for the Can$/US$ Exchange Rate Staff Discussion Paper 2010-2 Alejandro García, Andrei Prokopiw Security prices contain valuable information that can be used to make a wide variety of economic decisions. To extract this information, a model is required that relates market prices to the desired information, and that ideally can be implemented using timely and low-cost methods. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Exchange rates, Financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C0, C00, C02, G, G1, G13