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We document an increase in deviations from short-term covered interest rate parity (CIP) in the first half of 2015. Since the Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) decision to abandon its minimum exchange rate policy, both the magnitude and volatility of deviations from CIP have increased across several currency pairs. The effect is particularly pronounced for pairs involving the Swiss franc.

We add agency costs as in Carlstrom and Fuerst (1997) into a two-country, two-good international business-cycle model. In our model, changes in the relative price of investment arise endogenously.

Canada’s international competitiveness has received increasing attention in recent years as exports have fallen short of expectations and Canada has lost market share. This paper asks whether the Bank of Canada’s current effective exchange rate measure, the CERI, is still an accurate measure of Canada’s international competitiveness.

This article reviews and examines some of the main explanations for the slow growth that many advanced economies continue to experience seven years after the 2007–09 global financial crisis. Does this muted recovery reflect just a prolonged cycle in the aftermath of a financial crisis? Is it due to a structural inadequacy of demand leading to a long-lasting liquidity trap? Or is it largely supply side in nature, reflecting demographic and technological factors?

As the size and complexity of the foreign exchange reserves have grown over the years, enhancements to the management framework needed to keep pace. This is a common theme for most reserve managers around the world. In Canada, the enhancements focused on governance, portfolio management, risk measurement and risk management. This article briefly describes these enhancements, why they were implemented and some of the lessons learned along the way.

Inflation rates in advanced economies experienced two consecutive puzzles during the period following the global financial crisis—unexpectedly high inflation from the end of 2009 to 2011 and unexpectedly low inflation from 2012 to the middle of 2014. We investigate these developments in two ways. First, we show that accounting for inflation expectations by households explains a significant share of the inflation puzzles at the international level. Second, we find that, for Canada, elevated competition in the retail sector is also important for understanding inflation dynamics in the post-crisis period.

Global trade growth has been weak during the period following the 2007–09 financial crisis. This is an important development for Canada, given the Canadian economy's high degree of openness to trade. This article investigates some of the factors behind the slowdown in global trade and finds that the weakness of global demand and its changing composition, increased protectionism and diminishing incentives to expand trade have all played a role. Some of these factors are likely to have only a temporary effect on trade growth, but others could be more long-lasting.

While quantitative easing (QE) in the United States likely increased capital flows to emerging-market economies (EMEs), putting upward pressure on asset prices and exchange rates, diverging fundamentals between advanced economies and EMEs were also important drivers. Evidence suggests that the benefits of QE to EMEs, in higher global demand and increased confidence, appear to outweigh the costs. When advanced economies begin to normalize monetary policy, the best defence for EMEs against any potential instability is likely to be further strengthening of their macroeconomic and financial policy frameworks.

At a time when the Bank is expecting a rotation of demand toward exports and investment, and transformative global trends are placing increasing emphasis on innovation, technology and organizational learning, an understanding of the competitiveness strategies of Canadian firms and the factors affecting them has become particularly relevant. This article summarizes findings from a Bank of Canada survey of 151 firms designed to extract signals on elements of firm strategy and organizational capital in order to help inform the macroeconomic outlook.

This article provides an overview of the growth of Canadian-dollar-denominated assets in official foreign reserves. Based on International Monetary Fund data and on internal Bank of Canada analysis, we estimate that the total reserve holdings of Canadian-dollar assets increased from negligible levels before 2008 to around US$200 billion in the third quarter of 2013. We discuss the determinants of this increase, as well as its potential impact on Canadian debt markets, for example, lower yields and therefore reduced financing costs for the Government of Canada, and the possible negative impact on market liquidity.