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The Canadian economy is expected to expand by 2.1 per cent this year and in 2018.

Canada’s inflation-control targets establish a specific medium-term objective for monetary policy.

Since the autumn of 1997, the regional offices of the Bank of Canada have conducted quarterly consultations with businesses across Canada. Timed to feed into the process that precedes the Bank's fixed dates for announcing monetary policy decisions, the consultations (now referred to as the Business Outlook Survey) are structured around a questionnaire which is sent to 100 firms that reflect the Canadian economy in terms of region, type of business activity, and firm size. Martin describes both the consultation process and the questionnaire and makes an initial assessment of the data gathered during the business interviews. The article includes charts and correlation tables that illustrate the responses to the key questions included in the survey.

Walsh's paper highlights many useful lessons that can be learned from the conventional framework and its various extensions. However, the financial crisis provides a stark and costly reminder of just how incomplete the standard model is.

Deputy Governor Toni Gravelle discusses the Bank’s latest interest rate announcement and explains how efforts to keep financial markets functioning through the COVID-19 crisis will lay a solid foundation for economic recovery

The Bank of Canada's 2005 conference focused on two critical issues: price-level targets versus inflation targets, and the appropriate level of inflation. Session topics included new methodological approaches to examining the validity of the New Keynesian Phillips curve for Canada; the monetary policy implications of border effects and the financial-accelerator model; the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates; and inflation and welfare in general-equilibrium macroeconomic models. A panel of invited speakers discussed the issues of each session, and two distinguished speakers gave their perspectives on inflation.

On balance, firms expect sales growth to pick up over the next 12 months, and plan to increase investment spending and employment. Their investment plans are increasingly being targeted at expansion and at improving efficiency to promote future growth.

A highly credible monetary policy helps to reduce the degree of uncertainty that can surround the objectives of such policy. When the monetary policy pursued by the central bank is credible, the expectations of the public are focused on a target. If the public believes that the Bank will act to bring inflation back to the target, then its expectations will not react so strongly to fluctuating price trends. In turn, fluctuations in inflation, interest rates, output, and employment should be less pronounced than in the absence of such credibility. The adoption of inflation control as a monetary policy objective by some countries has led central banks to take steps to enhance the credibility of monetary policy. For the Bank of Canada, these include * the publication of our Monetary Policy Report each May and November, with formal updates each February and August * the initiation of communications activities across the country * the use of the overnight interest rate as a short-term operating target * the issuing of a press release each time the Bank changes its key rates To date, most of the studies on this topic have concluded that success in keeping inflation within a target range has helped to increase the credibility of Canadian monetary policy. These surveys suggest that expected inflation, which stood at about 5 per cent in 1990, declined to around 2 per cent by 1999 (Chart 1, page 15). Indeed, according to these surveys, for the entire period during which the Bank has had a target range for inflation, expected inflation rates have remained within that range. Inflation expectations have also reacted very little to changes in the total CPI, suggesting that the targets have helped to focus expectations on the target rate and have thus enhanced the credibility of monetary policy (Chart 2, page 16). One particular study shows that the life of collective wage agreements in Canada has been increasing and that the number of such agreements containing cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) clauses has steadily declined. The authors of this study suggest that this may reflect the greater credibility of Canadian monetary policy (Table 1, page 16). The proportion of mortgages with five-year terms is now higher than it was in the mid-1980s, and many financial institutions have been offering 7- to 10-year mortgages. This also suggests that inflation targets have gained credibility.

This article first outlines the activities of the Bank's regional offices and looks at how regional economic analysis fits into the Bank's decision-making process. The changing role of the regional offices in communications and in information gathering is examined, focusing on the quarterly surveys of industries and associations. The second section reviews, from a regional perspective, economic developments since the Asian crisis and future prospects.

The summer Business Outlook Survey points to a diverging outlook across regions. While there are some encouraging signs, owing in part to strengthening U.S. demand, weak oil prices continue to significantly dampen economic perspectives in affected sectors and regions.