Allocative Efficiency and the Productivity Slowdown Staff Working Paper 2021-1 Lin Shao, Rongsheng Tang In our analysis of the US productivity slowdown in the 1970s and 2000s, we find that a significant portion of this deceleration can be attributed to a lack of improvement in allocative efficiency across sectors. Our analysis further identifies increased sector-level volatility as a major contributor to this lack of improvement in allocative efficiency. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E2, E23, O, O4, O47
January 1, 2021 About legal tender Find out what “legal tender” means, why legal tender status changes, and how to redeem older bank notes. Content Type(s): Background materials Topic(s): Bank notes
December 31, 2020 Research Update - December 2020 This monthly newsletter features the latest research publications by Bank of Canada economists including external publications and working papers published on the Bank of Canada’s website. Content Type(s): Staff research, Research newsletters
Consumer Credit with Over-optimistic Borrowers Staff Working Paper 2020-57 Florian Exler, Igor Livshits, James (Jim) C. MacGee, Michèle Tertilt When lenders cannot directly identify behavioural and rational borrowers, they use type scoring to track the likelihood of a borrower’s type. This leads to the partial pooling of borrowers, which results in rational borrowers subsidizing borrowing costs for behavioural borrowers. This, in turn, reduces the effectiveness of regulatory policies that target mistakes by behavioural borrowers. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Credit risk management, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E4, E49, G, G1, G18, K, K3, K35
Losing Contact: The Impact of Contactless Payments on Cash Usage Staff Working Paper 2020-56 Marie-Hélène Felt Contactless payment cards are a competitive alternative to cash. Using Canadian panel data from 2010 to 2017, this study investigates whether contactless credit cards are an important contributor to the decline in the transactional use of cash. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial services JEL Code(s): C, C3, C33, D, D1, D12, E, E4, E41
Implementation and Effectiveness of Extended Monetary Policy Tools: Lessons from the Literature Staff Discussion Paper 2020-16 Grahame Johnson, Sharon Kozicki, Romanos Priftis, Lena Suchanek, Jonathan Witmer, Jing Yang This paper summarizes the literature on the performance of various extended monetary policy tools when conventional policy rates are constrained by the effective lower bound. We highlight issues that may arise when these tools are used by central banks of small open economies. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Monetary policy, Monetary policy implementation, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, E58, E6, E63
A Reference Guide for the Business Outlook Survey Staff Discussion Paper 2020-15 David Amirault, Naveen Rai, Laurent Martin The Business Outlook Survey (BOS) has become an important part of monetary policy deliberations at the Bank of Canada and is also well known in Canadian policy and financial circles. This paper compiles more than 20 years of experience conducting the BOS and serves as a comprehensive reference manual. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Firm dynamics, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): C, C8, C83, D, D2, D22, E, E3, E32