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Offline functionality is a key consideration for a potential CBDC. We describe the different types of offline functionality based on their duration outside of network connection—either intermittent (for short periods) or extended (for longer periods). We discuss the advantages and drawbacks of each and consider implications for end-user devices, system resilience and universal accessibility.

The arrival of immigrants increases demand for housing and puts upward pressure on shelter prices. Using instrumental variables based on the ancestry composition of residents in US counties, we estimate the causal impact of immigration on local shelter prices.

This paper presents a dynamic general equilibrium model where asymmetric information about asset quality leads to asset illiquidity. Banking arises endogenously in this environment as banks can pool illiquid assets to average out their idiosyncratic qualities and issue liquid liabilities backed by pooled assets whose total quality is public information.

We study how different types of monetary policy shape the distributional effects of external economic shocks on households’ consumption in a small open economy. Our results present a trade-off between maintaining overall stabilization and controlling consumption inequality.

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.

The Canadian Financial Monitor (CFM) survey uses non-probability sampling for data collection, so selection bias is likely. We outline methods for obtaining survey weights and discuss the conditions necessary for these weights to eliminate selection bias. We obtain calibration weights for the 2018 and 2019 online CFM samples.

Recent sharp declines in commodity prices and the simultaneous depreciation of the Canadian dollar (CAD) relative to the U.S. dollar (USD) have rekindled an interest in the relationship between commodity prices and the CAD-USD exchange rate.

We analyze the interaction between committed monetary policy and discretionary fiscal policy in a model with public debt, endogenous government expenditures, distortive taxation and nominal rigidities.

How are regional cost shocks passed through into global prices? We investigate the role of short-run capacity constraints and show that they can induce stark non-linearities in the pass-through. We highlight this effect for the market for ammonia, a commodity produced largely from natural gas.

The authors describe the liabilities model of the Exchange Fund Account (EFA). The EFA is managed using an asset-liability matching framework that requires currency and duration matching of both sides of the balance sheet.