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This is the second in a series of semi-annual reports designed to increase the transparency and understanding of Canadian monetary policy.

Growth in the global economy began to slow in the fourth quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2008. This reflected the effects of the slowdown in the U.S. economy and ongoing dislocations in global financial markets.

At the time of the November 2000 Monetary Policy Report, although signs of the anticipated slowing of the U.S. economy were becoming apparent, the momentum of the global economy was considered strong.

In the year just ended, the global economy faced a number of exceptional challenges, reflecting a wide range of economic, financial, and geopolitical risks and uncertainties. These included the fallout from the September 2001 terrorist attacks, corporate accounting scandals, stock market volatility, and developments in the Middle East. Despite this global backdrop, the Canadian economy outperformed virtually all other industrial economies, growing by about 3 1/4 per cent and creating 560,000 jobs, while inflation expectations remained well anchored to the Bank of Canada’s 2 per cent inflation-control target.

In the April Monetary Policy Report, the Bank noted that inflation was well above its 2 per cent target and that short-term inflation expectations had edged up.

Salespeople are widely employed in many industries. We leverage a unique data set on retail sales from a leading Chinese cold-drink manufacturer and information on the firm’s salespeople assignment rule to measure the causal effect of salespeople on product revenue.

Two major issues dominate the analysis and policy discussion in this Monetary Policy Report: the nature and extent of the global economic slowdown that began late last year and the consequences of the terrorist attacks in the United States.

Using the Bank of Canada's Currency Information Management Strategy, we analyze the network structure traced by a bank note’s travel in circulation and find that the denomination of the bank note is important in our potential understanding of the demand and use of cash.

We model non-bank entry into fixed-income markets and state-dependent liquidity. Non-bank financial institutions improve liquidity more during normal times than in stress. Banks may become less reliable to marginal clients, exacerbating the difference in liquidity between normal and stressed times. Central bank lending during stress may limit this harmful division.

During the past six months, global economic uncertainties have intensified, largely as a result of developments in emerging-market economies.