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We ask whether a weaker contribution of information and communication technologies (ICT) to productivity growth could account for the productivity slowdown observed in Canada since the early 2000s. To answer this question, we consider several methods capturing channels through which ICT could affect aggregate productivity growth.

It has been well documented that the education premium measured by the wage difference between university and high school graduates has remained constant over the past two decades in Canada. Despite this stable pattern at the aggregate level, skill-biased technology could have important implications for the inter-industry wage structure.

The author suggests that commodity-linked bonds could provide a potential means for less-developed countries (LDCs) to raise money on the international capital markets, rather than through standard forms of financing.

The U.S. recovery from the Great Recession has been slow relative to other postwar-era recoveries in the United States. Encouraged by loose lending standards in the pre-crisis period, U.S. households took on unsustainable amounts of debt, making them vulnerable to adverse shocks. Subsequently, a considerable drop in asset prices forced households to repair their balance sheets. While there has been progress in household deleveraging, the government sector now needs to delever, which will restrain growth over the next few years.

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 theory, nominal exchange rate movements can lead to “expenditure switching” when they generate changes in the relative prices of goods across countries. This paper explores whether the expenditure-switching role of exchange rates has changed in the current episode of significant global imbalances.

This paper considers an economy where central-bank-issued fiat money competes with privately issued e-money. We study a policy-setting game between the central bank and the e-money issuer and find (1) the optimal monetary policy of the central bank depends on the policy of the private issuer and may deviate from the Friedman rule; (2) multiple equilibria may exist; (3) when the economy approaches a cashless state, the central bank’s optimal policy improves the market power of the e-money issuer and can lead to a discrete decrease in welfare and a discrete increase in inflation; and (4) first best cannot be achieved.

This paper quantifies the impact of hurricanes on seaborne international trade to the United States. Matching the timing of hurricane–trade route intersections with monthly U.S. port-level trade data, we isolate the unanticipated effects of a hurricane hitting a trade route using two separate identification schemes: an event study and a local projection.

We simulate the impact of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) on consumer adoption, merchant acceptance and use of different payment methods. Modest frictions that deter consumer adoption of a CBDC inhibit its market penetration. Minor pricing responses by financial institutions and payment service providers further reduce the impact of a CBDC.

This note studies a form of a utility function of consumption with habit and leisure that (a) is compatible with long-run balanced growth, (b) hits a steady-state observed target for hours worked and (c) is consistent with micro-econometric evidence for the inter-temporal elasticity of substitution and the Frisch elasticity of labor supply.