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Many explanations for the decline in real interest rates over the last 30 years point to the role that population aging or rising income inequality plays in increasing the long-run aggregate demand for assets. Notwithstanding the importance of such factors, the starting point of this paper is to show that the major change driving household asset demand over this period is instead an increased desire—for a given age and income level—to hold assets.

This monthly newsletter features the latest research publications by Bank of Canada economists including external publications and working papers published on the Bank of Canada’s website.

Innovations in basic information technologies, in payment applications, and in the availability of global markets, as well as substantial changes in financial sector policy, have fundamentally changed how the retail payments system in Canada operates. Principally, the volume and types of electronic payments have grown, and there is increased participation by diverse groups of financial and non-financial institutions as providers of retail payment services. The resulting policy problem for payment systems is how best to benefit from efficiency gains while managing payment risks. O'Connor examines the effect of the technological and legislative changes and the initiatives developed by the public and private sectors in such areas as the market arrangements for services; customer risks and costs for settling large-value retail payments; the security of payment information and the efficiency with which it is transmitted; and the effects of differing regulatory regimes on competition among providers of retail payment services.

This issue features a summary of the Bank’s annual conference, which took place in November 2011 and dealt with payments systems, and two articles that present research by Bank staff on global current account imbalances and macrofinancial risk assessment. The fourth article in this issue reviews the recent experience with inflation targeting.

The Bank of Canada, through its Standing Liquidity Facility (SLF), provides access to liquidity to those institutions that participate directly in the Large Value Transfer System (LVTS).

This newsletter features the latest research publications by Bank of Canada economists including external publications and working papers published on the Bank of Canada’s website.

Thank you for this opportunity to appear here today. Recent Economic and Financial Developments In recent weeks, several downside risks to the Bank’s July Monetary Policy Report (MPR) projection have been realised. The European sovereign crisis has intensified, the U.S. credit rating has been downgraded, and a broad range of data has signalled slower global […]

Optimal coordination of monetary and macroprudential policies implies higher risk weights on (safe) bonds any time that banks are required to hold additional capital buffers. Coordination also implies a somewhat tighter monetary-policy stance whenever such capital buffers are released.

In this paper, we assess several methods that have been used to measure the Canadian trend unemployment rate (TUR). We also consider improvements and extensions to some existing methods.

As the holiday season approaches, our attention turns naturally to the home front. Accordingly, my comments this afternoon will focus on households. I would like to concentrate in particular on the implications of Canadian household finances for financial stability in our country.