Indicator Models of Core Inflation for Canada Staff Working Paper 1999-13 Richard Dion When there is uncertainty about estimates of the margin of unused capacity in the economy, examining a range of inflation indicators may help in assessing the balance of risks regarding the outlook for inflation. This paper tests a wide range of observable variables for their leading-indicator properties with respect to core inflation, including: commodity prices, […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E37
Greater Transparency in Monetary Policy: Impact on Financial Markets Technical Report No. 86 Philippe Muller, Mark Zelmer Measures have been taken by the Bank of Canada to increase the transparency of Canadian monetary policy. This paper examines whether the greater transparency has improved financial markets' understanding of the conduct of monetary policy. Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Financial markets, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, E58, G, G1, G14
Uncovering Inflation Expectations and Risk Premiums From Internationally Integrated Financial Markets Staff Working Paper 1999-6 Ben Fung, Scott Mitnick, Eli Remolona Theory and empirical evidence suggest that the term structure of interest rates reflects risk premiums as well as market expectations about future inflation and real interest rates. We propose an approach to extracting such premiums and expectations by exploiting both the comovements among interest rates across the yield curve and between two countries, Canada and […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Inflation and prices, Interest rates, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, G, G1, G12, G15
Monetary Rules When Economic Behaviour Changes Staff Working Paper 1999-8 Robert Amano, Donald Coletti, Tiff Macklem This paper examines the implications of changes in economic behaviour for simple inflation-forecast–based monetary rules of the type currently used at two inflation-targeting central banks. Three types of changes in economic behaviour are considered, changes that are motivated by developments in monetary and fiscal policy in the 1990s: changes in monetary policy credibility, changes in […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credibility, Monetary policy and uncertainty, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52
The Quantity of Money and Monetary Policy Staff Working Paper 1999-5 David Laidler The relationships among the quantity theory of money, monetarism and policy regimes based on money-growth and inflation targeting are briefly discussed as a prelude to an exposition of alternative views of money's role in the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. The passive-money view treats the money supply as an endogenous variable that plays no role […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Monetary aggregates, Monetary policy framework, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5, E51, E52
Inflation Targeting under Uncertainty Technical Report No. 85 Gabriel Srour This paper studies the implications of certain kinds of uncertainty for monetary policy. It first describes the optimum policy rule in a simple model of the transmission mechanism as in Ball and Svensson. Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Monetary policy and uncertainty, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52
The Exchange Rate Regime and Canada's Monetary Order Staff Working Paper 1999-7 David Laidler It is a mistake to debate the merits of alternative exchange rate regimes for Canada independently of other features of the monetary order. A coherent order requires a well-defined goal for monetary policy, one that the authorities are capable of achieving, and that anchors private sector expectations. For it to be liberal, the relevant authorities […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, F, F3, F31
Forecasting GDP Growth Using Artificial Neural Networks Staff Working Paper 1999-3 Greg Tkacz, Sarah Hu Financial and monetary variables have long been known to contain useful leading information regarding economic activity. In this paper, the authors wish to determine whether the forecasting performance of such variables can be improved using neural network models. The main findings are that, at the 1-quarter forecasting horizon, neural networks yield no significant forecast improvements. […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Monetary and financial indicators JEL Code(s): C, C4, C45, E, E3, E37, E4, E44
Capital Gains and Inflation Taxes in a Life-cycle Model Staff Working Paper 1999-2 Charles Leung, Guang-Jia Zhang Inflation distorts an economy through many channels. This paper highlights the interaction between inflation and capital gains tax and how they distort an economy through the financial market. Several observations motivate this research. First, capital formation or investment is an important channel for economic agents to smooth their consumption over their life cycles. Second, capital […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation: costs and benefits JEL Code(s): E, E5, E6
Dynamic Employment and Hours Effects of Government Spending Shocks Staff Working Paper 1999-1 Mingwei Yuan, Wenli Li In this paper, we analyze the dynamic behaviour of employment and hours worked per worker in a stochastic general equilibrium model with a matching mechanism between vacancies and unemployed workers. The model is estimated for the United States using the Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) estimation technique. An increase in government spending raises hours worked […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Fiscal policy, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E3, E32, E6, E62, J, J6, J64