Exchange Rate Pass-through and Monetary Policy: How Strong is the Link? Staff Working Paper 2009-29 Stephen Murchison Several authors have presented reduced-form evidence suggesting that the degree of exchange rate pass-through to the consumer price index has declined in Canada since the early 1980s and is currently close to zero. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Exchange rates, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, F, F3, F31, F4, F41
Bond Liquidity Premia Staff Working Paper 2009-28 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, René Garcia Recent asset pricing models of limits to arbitrage emphasize the role of funding conditions faced by financial intermediaries. In the US, the repo market is the key funding market. Then, the premium of on-the-run U.S. Treasury bonds should share a common component with risk premia in other markets. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial stability JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, H, H1, H12
Risk Premium Shocks and the Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates Staff Working Paper 2009-27 Robert Amano, Malik Shukayev There appears to be a disconnect between the importance of the zero bound on nominal interest rates in the real-world and predictions from quantitative DSGE models. Recent economic events have reinforced the relevance of the zero bound for monetary policy whereas quantitative models suggest that the zero bound does not constrain (optimal) monetary policy. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E5, E52
Consumption, Housing Collateral, and the Canadian Business Cycle Staff Working Paper 2009-26 Ian Christensen, Paul Corrigan, Caterina Mendicino, Shin-Ichi Nishiyama Using Bayesian methods, we estimate a small open economy model in which consumers face limits to credit determined by the value of their housing stock. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the role of collateralized household debt in the Canadian business cycle. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credit and credit aggregates, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E3, E32, E4, E44, E5, E52, R, R2, R21
Credit Constraints and Consumer Spending Staff Working Paper 2009-25 Kimberly Beaton This paper examines the relationship between aggregate consumer spending and credit availability in the United States. The author finds that consumer spending falls (rises) in response to a reduction (increase) in credit availability. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Domestic demand and components, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E27, E4, E44, E5, E51, E58
Resurrecting the Role of Real Money Balance Effects Staff Working Paper 2009-24 José Dorich I present a structural econometric analysis supporting the hypothesis that money is still relevant for shaping inflation and output dynamics in the United States. In particular, I find that real money balance effects are quantitatively important, although smaller than they used to be in the early postwar period. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary aggregates, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32, E5, E52
Short Changed? The Market's Reaction to the Short Sale Ban of 2008 Staff Working Paper 2009-23 Louis Gagnon, Jonathan Witmer Do short sales restrictions have an impact on security prices? We address this question in the context of a natural experiment surrounding the short sale ban of 2008 using a comprehensive sample of Canadian stocks cross-listed in the U.S. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F3, F30, G, G0, G01, G1, G18, G2, G20
Productivity, the Terms of Trade, and the Real Exchange Rate: The Balassa-Samuelson Hypothesis Revisited Staff Working Paper 2009-22 Ehsan U. Choudhri, Lawrence L. Schembri The paper examines how the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis is affected by a modern variation of the standard model that allows product differentiation (within the traded and nontraded goods sectors) with the number of firms determined exogenously or endogenously. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Exchange rates, Productivity JEL Code(s): F, F3, F31, F4, F41
Structural Inflation Models with Real Wage Rigidities: The Case of Canada Staff Working Paper 2009-21 Jean-Marie Dufour, Lynda Khalaf, Maral Kichian Real wage rigidities have recently been proposed as a way of building intrinsic persistence in inflation within the context of New Keynesian Phillips Curves. Using two recent illustrative structural models, we evaluate empirically the importance of real wage rigidities in the data and the extent to which such models provide useful information regarding price stickiness. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices, Labour markets JEL Code(s): C, C1, C13, C5, C52, E, E3, E31
The Equity Premium and the Volatility Spread: The Role of Risk-Neutral Skewness Staff Working Paper 2009-20 Bruno Feunou, Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Roméo Tedongap We introduce the Homoscedastic Gamma [HG] model where the distribution of returns is characterized by its mean, variance and an independent skewness parameter under both measures. The model predicts that the spread between historical and risk-neutral volatilities is a function of the risk premium and of skewness. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G13