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The current international monetary system is in need of reform. This article first provides an assessment of the existing system, highlighting both its strengths and weaknesses. It notes that the system has not facilitated the symmetric and timely adjustment in the real exchange rate necessary to accommodate the integration of China and other emerging-market economies into the global economy. This lack of adjustment contributed to the global financial crisis and recession and, because it is forestalling the required rotation of global demand, is hindering the global recovery. The article then discusses reform of the system that would see all systemically important countries and currency areas adopt market-based and convertible floating exchange rates supported by appropriate monetary, fiscal and financial sector policy frameworks. It also examines the roles of the G-20 countries and major international financial institutions in promoting and facilitating the system’s transition.

We build upon new developments in the international trade literature to construct a quantitative Ricardian framework similar to Caliendo and Parro (2015) to isolate and estimate the long-run economic impacts of tariff changes.

The Canadian financial system remains resilient, but vulnerabilities have become more complex and risks have grown. The Bank is carefully watching households’ high levels of mortgage debt, as well as the risks associated with a price correction in Canada’s housing market.

Canada’s international competitiveness has received increasing attention in recent years as exports have fallen short of expectations and Canada has lost market share. This paper asks whether the Bank of Canada’s current effective exchange rate measure, the CERI, is still an accurate measure of Canada’s international competitiveness.

Residential mortgage securitization plays an important role in the Canadian system of housing finance, especially given the rising share of government-supported (i.e., public) securitization over the past 15 years. Mordel and Stephens analyze the evolution of two types of mortgage securitization in Canada— private and public — focusing in particular on the underlying public policy and economic benefits of the latter. They review the potential implications of the extent of public securitization and conclude with a discussion of policies that could be considered to reinvigorate private securitization in Canada.

The elimination of long-term contracts and early termination fees (ETFs) in the US wireless industry at the end of 2015 increased monthly service fees by 2 to 5 percent. Nevertheless, consumers are clearly better off without ETFs. While firms’ revenues from ETFs vanish, their profits from monthly fees increase. As a result, the overall effect on producer profits is less clear.

Emergency Lending Assistance (ELA) is a discretionary last-resort collateralized loan or ad-vance by the Bank of Canada to eligible financial institutions (FIs) and financial market infrastructures (FMIs) facing serious liquidity problems. In December 2015, the Bank revised its ELA policy to (i) replace the requirement for an FI’s solvency with the requirement for a credible recovery and resolution framework; (ii) include mortgages as eligible collateral; and (iii) clarify both the eligibility requirements for FMIs and provincially regulated deposit-taking FIs.

This paper measures how both geographical and cultural proximity of bank branches affect household credit choice and pricing. For credit products that require high levels of ex-ante screening, we find that both proximities can complement each other in reducing the cost of providing soft information, thereby increasing credit access.

Most models in finance assume that agents make trading plans over the infinite future. We consider instead that they are boundedly rational and may only form forecasts over a limited horizon.

We develop statistical inferences for a non-probability two-phase survey sample when relevant auxiliary information is available from a probability survey sample. The proposed method is assessed by simulation studies and used to analyze a non-probability two phase payment survey.