Firms Dynamics, Bankruptcy Laws and Total Factor Productivity Staff Working Paper 2007-17 Hajime Tomura This paper analyzes endogenous fluctuations in total factor productivity (TFP) in a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents, and illustrates the interaction of credit market frictions, asset prices, the entry and exit of firms, and fluctuations in TFP in response to firm-level productivity and aggregate credit-market shocks. I also analyze the effect of bankruptcy and foreclosure laws on fluctuations in TFP through their effect on credit market frictions. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial stability, Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D2, D24, E, E4, E44, G, G3, G33
World Real Interest Rates: A Global Savings and Investment Perspective Staff Working Paper 2007-16 Brigitte Desroches, Michael Francis Over the past 15 years, long-term interest rates have declined to levels not seen since the 1970s. This paper explores possible shifts in global savings and investment that have led to this fall in the world real interest rate. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Interest rates, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E2, E4, F, F3
Does Indexation Bias the Estimated Frequency of Price Adjustment? Staff Working Paper 2007-15 Maral Kichian, Oleksiy Kryvtsov We assess the implications of price indexation for estimated frequency of price adjustment in sticky price models of business cycles. These models predominantly assume that non-reoptimized prices are indexed to lagged or average inflation. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Economic models, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E37
Optimization in a Simulation Setting: Use of Function Approximation in Debt Strategy Analysis Staff Working Paper 2007-13 David Bolder, Tiago Rubin The stochastic simulation model suggested by Bolder (2003) for the analysis of the federal government's debt-management strategy provides a wide variety of useful information. It does not, however, assist in determining an optimal debt-management strategy for the government in its current form. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Debt management, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets, Fiscal policy JEL Code(s): C, C0, C1, C14, C15, C5, C51, C52, C6, C61, C65, E, E6, G, G1, H, H6, H63
Uncollateralized Overnight Loans Settled in LVTS Staff Working Paper 2007-11 Scott Hendry, Nadja Kamhi Loan-level data on the uncollateralized overnight loan market is generated using payment data from Canada's Large Value Transfer System (LVTS) and a modified version of the methodology proposed in Furfine (1999). There were on average just under 100 loans extended in this market each day from March 2004 to March 2006 for a total daily value of about $5 billion. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial markets, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, E5, E50, G, G1, G12
Do We Need the IMF to Resolve a Crisis? Lessons from Past Episodes of Debt Restructuring Staff Working Paper 2007-10 Philipp Maier This study investigate how debt restructurings have evolved over the decades. Debtors and creditors have a long history of engaging an outsider – a “third party”, such as the IMF – to organise and facilitate debt restructurings. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial stability, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E5, F, F3, N, N1, N2
Evaluating Forecasts from Factor Models for Canadian GDP Growth and Core Inflation Staff Working Paper 2007-8 Frédérick Demers, Calista Cheung This paper evaluates the performance of static and dynamic factor models for forecasting Canadian real output growth and core inflation on a quarterly basis. We extract the common component from a large number of macroeconomic indicators, and use the estimates to compute out-of-sample forecasts under a recursive and a rolling scheme with different window sizes. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, E, E3, E37
Technology Shocks and Business Cycles: The Role of Processing Stages and Nominal Rigidities Staff Working Paper 2007-7 Louis Phaneuf, Nooman Rebei This paper develops and estimates a dynamic general equilibrium model that realistically accounts for an input-output linkage between firms operating at different stages of processing. Firms face technological change which is specific to their processing stage and charge new prices according to stage-specific Calvo-probabilities. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32
Monetary Policy Committees in Action: Is There Room for Improvement? Staff Working Paper 2007-6 Philipp Maier More than 80 central banks use a committee to take monetary policy decisions. The composition of the committee and the structure of the meeting can affect the quality of the decision making. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Central bank research, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): C, C9, C92, D, D7, D70, E, E5, E58
Time-Consistent Control in Non-Linear Models Staff Working Paper 2007-3 Steve Ambler, Florian Pelgrin We show how to use optimal control theory to derive optimal time-consistent Markov-perfect government policies in nonlinear dynamic general equilibrium models, extending the result of Cohen and Michel (1988) for models with quadratic objective functions and linear dynamics. We replace private agents' costates by flexible functions of current states in the government's maximization problem. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Fiscal policy, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): C, C6, C63, E, E6, E61, E62