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The Government of Canada and the Bank of Canada agreed that the inflation target will continue to be defined in terms of the 12-month rate of change in the total CPI, that it will continue to be the 2 per cent mid-point of the 1 to 3 per cent inflation-control range, and that the agreement will run for another five-year period, ending 31 December 2021.

The break-even inflation rate (BEIR) is calculated by comparing the yields on conventional and Real Return Bonds. Defined as the average rate of inflation that equates the expected returns on these two bonds, the BEIR has the potential to contain useful information about long-run inflation expectations. Yet the BEIR has been higher, on average, and more variable than survey measures of inflation expectations, which may be explained by the effects of premiums and distortions embedded in the BEIR. Because of the difficulty in accounting for these distortions, the BEIR should not be given a large weight as a measure of long-run inflation expectations at this time. However, as the Real Return Bond market continues to develop, the BEIR should become a more useful indicator of inflation expectations. At present, it demonstrates no clear advantage over survey measures and even past inflation rates in forecasting near-term inflation.

The primary objective of Canada's monetary policy is to enhance the well-being of Canadians by contributing to sustained economic growth, rising levels of employment and improved living standards.

Inflation expectations are a key determinant of actual and future inflation and thus matter for the conduct of monetary policy. We study how firms form their inflation expectations using quarterly firm-level data from the Bank of Canada’s Business Outlook Survey, spanning the 2001 to 2015 period.

Central bankers from inflation-targeting and non-inflation-targeting countries around the world and several distinguished scholars assembled at the Bank of Canada in July 2008 to review the international experience in some detail. This article highlights topics covered in the special lectures and sessions, including how inflation targeting can manage external shocks, various ways in which monetary policy decisions are taken, and the issues of transparency and communications. It also reports on the discussion in the closing panel, which considered options for the future of inflation targeting.

The objective of Canada's monetary policy is to support and advance national economic well-being by contributing to sustained economic growth, rising levels of employment and improved living standards. The best contribution monetary policy can make to securing this outcome is to preserve confidence in the value of money by providing individuals and businesses with the certainty of a stable, low-inflation environment for their economic decisions.

The uncertainty regarding inflation that is observed in density forecasts of households and professionals helps macroeconomists understand the formation mechanism of inflation expectations. Shocks to inflation take time to be perceived by all agents in the economy, and such rigidity is lower in a high-inflation environment.

The day-long workshop, held at the Bank, brought out wide-ranging views on the goals of monetary policy, the effectiveness of monetary policy tools, the role of transparency and communications, and lessons learned from other central banks.

Decomposing total inflation in Canada as measured by the consumer price index (CPI) into its key macroeconomic factors, as presented in the most recent Monetary Policy Report, is an interesting exercise that shows how the exchange rate pass-through, commodity prices and the output gap have influenced the evolution of the total inflation rate over time. This aggregate approach, however, may mask important sectoral changes.

Canadians can be confident that monetary policy will maintain a "relentless" focus on controlling inflation, whether it rises above or drops below the official target range, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney said today.