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One year later, we review the events that took place in Canadian fixed-income markets at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis and propose potential policy research questions for future work.

Since 1983, the Bank of Canada has conducted a triennial survey of foreign exchange market activity in Canada. The latest survey was done in April 1995 and covered activity in both the foreign exchange market and in the derivatives markets. The central banks of most other industrialized countries with active foreign exchange and derivatives markets also conducted similar surveys. This was the first time that markets for over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives were surveyed by central banks in a systematic and comprehensive fashion. The average daily turnover in the Canadian foreign exchange market, including foreign exchange derivatives, has continued to grow rapidly (by approximately 36 per cent to about U.S.$30 billion) since the last survey, although at a slower pace than during the 1980s. Foreign exchange and interest rate derivatives contracts dominate derivatives market activity, with equity and commodity derivatives activity being almost negligible in comparison. Through April 1995, daily turnover volume in Canadian foreign exchange and interest rate derivatives markets averaged about U.S.$19 billion and U.S.$15 billion, respectively, mostly in forward and swap transactions.

For 85 years, the Council has promoted the idea that the United States should take a leading role in addressing global challenges. And it has done so consistently through the years, even during times when isolationism was more fashionable.

I develop a method for Bayesian estimation of globally solved, non-linear macroeconomic models. The method uses a mixture density network to approximate the initial state distribution. The mixture density network results in more reliable posterior inference compared with the case when the initial states are set to their steady-state values.

We show that changes in sentiment that aren’t related to fundamentals can drive persistent macroeconomic fluctuations even when all economic agents are rational. Changes in sentiment can also affect how fundamental shocks affect macroeconomic outcomes.

I am honoured to address members of the Canadian Association for Business Economics. My remarks today will focus on critical issues that the Bank of Canada has studied over the past four years and how this research will inform our work as we move forward post crisis.

Today, we meet against a backdrop of some uncertainty in the international economy. I would like to begin my remarks with an assessment of what the recent financial and economic events in Asia could mean for Canada.

Using our new quantitative tool, we show how the risks to the inflation and growth outlooks have evolved over the course of 2023.

Policy implications are derived for an inflation-targeting central bank, whose credibility is endogenous and depends on its past ability to achieve its targets. This is done in a New Keynesian framework with heterogeneous and boundedly rational expectations.