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We use retail payment data in conjunction with machine learning techniques to predict the effects of COVID-19 on the Canadian economy in near-real time. Our model yields a significant increase in macroeconomic prediction accuracy over a linear benchmark model.

Many emerging-market economies (EMEs) have significantly improved their macroeconomic fundamentals and undergone structural reforms since the Asian crisis. These developments have enhanced the composition of capital flows to EMEs through an improved debt structure, a larger share of capital flows as foreign direct investment, and greater access to international debt markets for corporations in EMEs. Structural changes in the global financial landscape have also increased capital flows, bringing economic and financial benefits to EMEs. During the recent financial crisis, however, the opening up of capital accounts and increased financial and trade linkages left many countries vulnerable to external disruptions. Countries with sound fundamentals have weathered the crisis relatively well. Policy-makers in EMEs need to implement policies that support capital flows and ensure that controls imposed to deal with detrimental outflows during periods of stress or rapid inflows are only temporary.

In this issue of the Financial System Review, the Bank of Canada’s Governing Council judges that, although the Canadian finan­cial system is currently on a sound footing, risks to its stability remain elevated and have edged higher since December 2010.

This paper provides an overview of digitalization and its economic implications. We assess the scope of digitalization in Canada as well as the challenges related to its measurement.

Recent years have seen renewed interest in the regulation of interbank markets. A review of the literature in this area identifies two gaps: first, the literature has tended to make ad hoc assumptions about the interbank contract space, which makes it difficult to generate convincing policy prescriptions; second, the literature has tended to focus on ex-post interventions that kick in only after an interbank disruption has come underway (e.g., open-market operations, lender-of-last-resort interventions, bail-outs), rather than ex-ante prudential policies.

Results from the Business Outlook Survey and the Business Leaders’ Pulse continue to signal weak demand, which is weighing on investment and hiring plans. While few firms are planning layoffs, labour markets are widely seen as continuing to soften. Although they remain above average, wage and inflation expectations are easing. Most firms that made abnormally large price increases in the past 12 months do not plan to do so again in the coming year.

This note reviews the channels through which scheduled minimum wage increases over the coming years may affect Canadian economic activity and inflation and assesses their macroeconomic impacts. From reduced-form estimates of direct minimum wage pass-through, we find that consumer price index (CPI) inflation could be boosted by about 0.1 percentage point (pp) on average in 2018.

The Bank of Canada’s Government of Canada Bond Purchase Program, launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, lowered the weighted average maturity of the Government of Canada’s debt by approximately 1.4 years. This in turn reduced Canadian 10-year and 5-year zero-coupon yields by 84 and 52 basis points, respectively.

The Canadian financial system has fared relatively well through this crisis, thanks to effective regulation and prudent practices that have worked like sandbags to protect our financial system from the storms in today's global economy.

The Bank of Canada today announced that Professor Michael Devereux of the University of British Columbia and Professor Shouyong Shi of the University of Toronto are the recipients of the Bank's Research Fellowship for 2008.