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Canadian economic activity remains strong, and employment is robust. The Bank is forecasting growth of about 4¼% in 2022, easing to 3¼% in 2023.

Indeed, the global financial crisis of the past two years has presented unique, stressful challenges that have forced us all to assess what has worked well and what needs to change. Today, I would like to review some of the critical thinking around these issues, primarily from the perspective of our work at the Bank of Canada.

Economic growth in Canada is expected to average 2.1 per cent in 2015 and 2.4 per cent in 2016, with a return to full capacity around the end of 2016.

Results from the summer Business Outlook Survey suggest that business sentiment is strongly negative in all regions and sectors due to impacts from the COVID 19 pandemic and the drop in oil prices. Firms reported that weak demand is reducing both capacity pressures and expectations for price growth.

We offer relevant authorities a three-step assessment framework they can use to understand, identify and quantify the risks associated with stablecoin and other cryptocurrency arrangements.

Higher interest rates are working to ease price pressures in Canada and inflation is coming down, though progress to the 2% target is slow. The Bank projects that inflation will stay around 3½% until the middle of 2024, returning to target in 2025.

Economic growth in Canada is forecast to pick up gradually. Inflation is expected to remain around 2% as core inflation slows.

Coletti and Lalonde compare inflation targeting and price-level targeting in the context of a small open economy subject to sizable terms-of-trade shocks. The authors summarize recent research that compares the ability of price-level targeting and inflation targeting to stabilize the macroeconomy when confronted with shocks similar to those experienced by Canada in recent years. Their preliminary results suggest that price-level targeting may represent a feasible alternative to traditional inflation targeting. Their article also provides insight into the direction of current research in this area at the Bank.

Inflation can affect both the dispersion of commodity-specific price levels across locations (relative price variability, RPV) and the dispersion of inflation rates (relative inflation variability, RIV). Some menu-cost models and models of consumer search suggest that the RIV-inflation relationship could differ from the RPV-inflation relationship.

The Canadian economy continues to adjust to developments in the global economy.