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In this paper, the authors assess the relationship between digitalization and labour demand and supply, and how this relationship affects wages and income inequality. We also explore implications of recent digitalization trends for the future of work.

Central banks’ actions to stabilize financial markets and implement monetary policy during crises may come with costs and side effects. We provide a literature review of these costs and discuss measures that may mitigate the negative impacts of crisis actions.

Starting this year, we will be using the January issue of our newsletter to look back at our research activities over the past year and to celebrate the achievements of our colleagues.

The fourth generation of Bank of Canada projection and policy analysis models seeks to improve our understanding of inflation dynamics, the supply side of the economy and the underlying risks faced by policy-makers coming from uncertainty about how the economy functions.

A number of questions can arise when considering the implications of a cashless society. This note considers whether cash is necessary for a uniform currency.

Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins discusses the benefits and risks of e-money - including cryptocurrencies - and the Bank of Canada’s role.

As the title of my speech suggests, I would like to discuss the connections between the real economy – the tangible world of jobs, goods and services – and the more intangible world of finance – of money flows, interest rates and the stock market. They have a long and eventful history.

We discuss the payment habits of Canadians both in the current payment environment and in a hypothetical cashless environment.

Over the last 10 years, the level of inflation has been much lower than in the previous two decades. At the same time, the behaviour of inflation has changed profoundly. By surveying the data and the economic research, the author first examines changes in the variability, growth rates, and behaviour of some of the major macroeconomic variables during the 1980s and 1990s. He then looks at how these changes are linked to a shift in the approach of monetary policy over the period. Lastly, he reviews the economic benefits that these changes have had for Canada.

The issue addressed in this article is the extent to which monetary policy in Canada should respond to asset-price bubbles. The article concludes that maintaining low and stable consumer price inflation is the best contribution that monetary policy can make to promoting economic and financial stability, even when the economy experiences asset-price bubbles. In extreme circumstances—when an asset-price bubble is well identified and likely to have significant costs to the economy when it bursts—monetary policy might better maintain low and stable consumer price inflation by leaning against a particular bubble even though it may mean that inflation deviates temporarily from its target. Such a strategy might reduce the risk that a crash in asset prices could lead to a recession and to inflation markedly below target in the longer run. The circumstances where this strategy is possible will be rare because economists are far from being able to determine consistently and reliably when leaning against a particular bubble is likely to do more harm than good. Housing-price bubbles should be a greater concern for Canadian monetary policy than equity-price bubbles, since rising housing prices are more likely to reflect excessively easy domestic credit conditions than are equity prices, which are largely determined in global markets.