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We examine the value of direct communication to households about inflation and the uncertainty around inflation statistics. All types of information about inflation are effective at immediately managing inflation expectations, with information about outlooks being more effective and relevant than that about recent inflation and Bank targets.

Should unemployment benefits be more generous during economic downturns? The optimal amount and duration of benefit payments ultimately depend on the demographic and wealth characteristics of benefit recipients.

To track how firms were affected by the appreciation of the Canadian dollar in 2003 and 2004 and the steps they took in response, the Bank included supplementary questions in the quarterly Business Outlook Survey conducted by its regional offices. About half of the firms surveyed reported being adversely affected, one-quarter experienced a favourable impact, and the remainder reported no effect. Jean Mair classifies and summarizes the firms' responses, identifying the sectors that were most and least affected. Causes of the impacts are identified, as well as the actions firms took as a result of the appreciation. The article looks at these actions over time to see what they tell us about firms' adjustment process.

This report provides a detailed technical description of an updated version of the Terms-of-Trade Economic Model (ToTEM II), which replaced ToTEM (Murchison and Rennison 2006) in June 2011 as the Bank of Canada’s quarterly projection model for Canada.

This issue of the Financial System Review focuses on the impact of COVID 19. The pandemic presents an unprecedented shock to the Canadian economy. This report identifies the effects on the Canadian financial system and explains how recent actions by the Bank and other policy-makers are helping to manage them. It further describes how a resilient financial system can help households and businesses smooth the effects of the COVID-19 shock and prepare for a robust recovery.

A large-scale reduction in mortgage principal can strengthen a recovery, support house prices and lower foreclosures. The nature of the intervention shapes its impact, which rests on how resources are redistributed across households. The availability of bankruptcy on unsecured debt changes the response to large-scale mortgage relief by reducing precautionary savings.

Unlike the 2008–09 global financial crisis, the onset of the COVID-19 crisis did not raise stress levels in Canada’s Large Value Transfer System. Swift changes to the Bank of Canada’s collateral policy and its large-scale asset purchase programs likely eased liquidity pressures in the system.

This study, which draws on a variety of research on price dynamics in Canada, examines some hypotheses that might explain the poor quality of recent inflation forecasts based on the conventional Phillips curve.

How is the stability of the financial sector affected by competition in the deposit market and by decisions banks make about transparency? We find that policies that aim to increase bank competition lead to higher bank deposit rates, increasing both withdrawal incentives and instability.

Because the Bank of Canada has started withdrawing monetary stimulus, monitoring the transmission of these changes to monetary policy will be important. Subcomponents of consumption and housing will likely respond differently to a monetary policy tightening, both in terms of the aggregate effect and timing.