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When China joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001, it marked a watershed for the world economy. Ten years from now, the opening of China’s capital account and the financial integration that will unfold will be viewed as a milestone of similar importance.

Carbon dioxide emissions have been commonly modelled as rising and falling with total output. Yet many factors, such as energy-efficiency improvements and shifts to cleaner energy, can break this relationship. We evaluate these factors using US data and find that changes in energy efficiency of consumption goods explain a significant proportion of emissions fluctuations. This finding also implies that models that omit energy efficiency likely overestimate the trade-off between environmental protection and economic performance.

The Bank of Canada has played an integral role in Canadian society for 70 years. When the Bank opened its doors in the spring of 1935, this country was struggling to define itself and to survive the economic and social turmoil of the Great Depression. Like Canada’s economy, its central bank has evolved and grown over the years. It has faced critical challenges and embraced change. But the Bank’s mandate has not changed. It is now, as it was then, to provide an effective, national monetary authority for Canada.

This paper studies the implications of model uncertainty for wealth distribution in a tractable general equilibrium model with a borrowing constraint and robustness à la Hansen and Sargent (2008). Households confront model uncertainty about the process driving the return of the risky asset, and they choose robust policies.

Should managers be paid in stock options if they provide stock-market participants with information about the firm? This paper studies how firm owners trade off the benefit of stock-price incentives and better-informed market participants against the cost of potential stock-price manipulation.

With inflation remaining low for the sixth consecutive year, the Canadian economy recorded a strong expansion of about 4 per cent through 1997.

In 1996 inflation remained within the Bank’s target range but was subject to downward pressure. The low rate of inflation contributed to a major easing in monetary conditions, and interest rates reached their lowest level in 30 years.

Exporters frequently change their market destinations. This paper introduces a new approach to identifying the drivers of these decisions over time. Analysis of customs data from China and the UK shows most changes are driven by demand rather than supply-related shocks.

The global economy has continued to grow at a robust pace since the July Monetary Policy Report Update.

The Canadian economy continues to grow at a solid pace, consistent with the Bank’s outlook in the January Monetary Policy Report Update.