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The authors investigate the implications of house-price bubbles for the optimal inflation-target horizon using a dynamic general-equilibrium model with credit frictions, house-price bubbles, and small open-economy features. They find that, given the distribution of shocks and inflation persistence over the past 25 years, the optimal target horizon for Canada tends to be at the lower […]

We examine how demographic factors influence potential output, focusing on how the age distribution of the working-age population and the old-age dependency ratio affect aggregate productivity. Following Feyrer (2007), we emphasize that the contribution to aggregate productivity varies by age group, with middle-aged individuals (aged 40 to 49) being the most productive.

This paper proposes new measures of the integrated variance, measures which use high-frequency bid-ask spreads and quoted depths. The traditional approach assumes that the mid-quote is a good measure of frictionless price.

The authors build a theoretical model that generates demand for collateral by Large Value Transfer System (LVTS) participants under the assumption that they minimize the cost of holding and managing collateral for LVTS purposes. The model predicts that the optimal amount of collateral held by each LVTS participant depends on the opportunity cost of collateral, the transactions costs of acquiring assets used as collateral and transferring them in and out of the LVTS, and the distribution of an LVTS participant's payment flows in the LVTS.

This article describes the major trends in the growth of labour productivity in Canada since the early 1960s and summarizes our current knowledge about the causes of the historical patterns. Particular attention is given to the period since the mid-1990s during which productivity growth has been significantly higher in the United States than in Canada. The author reviews the empirical evidence on the contribution of information and communication technology to the recent difference between Canadian and U.S. rates of productivity growth. Other determinants of a country's productivity performance, such as human capital formation and openness to international trade, are also examined. The article concludes with an assessment of the prospects for an increase in the trend rate of productivity growth in Canada over the coming years.

The authors assess the stabilization properties of simple monetary policy rules within the context of a small open-economy model constructed around the limited-participation assumption and calibrated to salient features of the Canadian economy. By relying on limited participation as the main nominal friction that affects the artificial economy, the authors provide an important check of the robustness of the results obtained using alternative environments in the literature on monetary policy rules, most notably the now-standard "New Keynesian" paradigm that emphasizes rigidities in the price-setting mechanism.

This note provides an update on Bank of Canada staff’s assessment of the Canadian neutral rate. The neutral rate is the policy rate needed to keep output at its potential level and inflation at target once the effects of any cyclical shocks have dissipated. This medium- to long-run concept serves as a benchmark for gauging the degree of monetary stimulus provided by a given policy setting.

This paper studies the effects of monetary policy in an inventory theoretic model of money demand. In this model, agents keep inventories of money, despite the fact that money is dominated in rate of return by interest bearing assets, because they must pay a fixed cost to transfer funds between the asset market and the goods market.

There has been tremendous discussion of Bitcoin, digital currencies and FinTech. However, there is limited empirical evidence of Bitcoin’s adoption and usage. We propose a methodology to collect a nationally representative sample using the Bitcoin Omnibus Survey (BTCOS) to track the ubiquity and usage of Bitcoin in Canada.

Could Canadian banks continue to meet their regulatory liquidity requirements after the introduction of a cash-like retail central bank digital currency (CBDC)? We conduct a hypothetical exercise to estimate how a CBDC could affect bank liquidity by increasing the run-off rates of transactional retail deposits under four increasingly severe scenarios.