Corporate Balance Sheets in Developed Economies: Implications for Investment Staff Working Paper 2007-24 Denise Côté, Christopher Graham In this paper, the authors examine the aggregate national balance-sheets of non-financial corporations in Australia and the G7 countries with a view to assessing both their financial structure and their financial position. More importantly, the authors investigate whether the financial position of non-financial corporations (i.e., debt-to-equity ratio) is material to the economy's investment prospects and whether the importance of this channel differs depending on the structure of corporate financing i.e., bank-based or market-oriented financing structures. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E2, E22, E3, E32, E4, E44
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 Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32
Housing Market Cycles and Duration Dependence in the United States and Canada Staff Working Paper 2007-2 Rose Cunningham, Ilan Kolet Housing wealth is a large component of total wealth and plays an important role in aggregate business cycles. In this paper, we explore data on real house price cycles at the aggregate level and city level for the United States and Canada. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C4, C41, E, E3, E32, R, R2, R21
How Far Can Forecasting Models Forecast? Forecast Content Horizons for Some Important Macroeconomic Variables Staff Working Paper 2007-1 John Galbraith, Greg Tkacz For stationary transformations of variables, there exists a maximum horizon beyond which forecasts can provide no more information about the variable than is present in the unconditional mean. Meteorological forecasts, typically excepting only experimental or exploratory situations, are not reported beyond this horizon; by contrast, little generally accepted information about such maximum horizons is available for economic variables. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53
December 20, 2006 Why Monetary Policy Matters: A Canadian Perspective Bank of Canada Review - Winter 2006-2007 Christopher Ragan This article provides answers to several key questions about Canadian monetary policy. First, what is monetary policy? Second, why does the Bank of Canada focus on the control of inflation rather than other macroeconomic variables? Third, how do the Bank's actions influence the rate of inflation? And, finally, how can monetary policy deliver genuine and significant benefits to society? Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Inflation: costs and benefits, Monetary policy framework
The Role of Debt and Equity Finance over the Business Cycle Staff Working Paper 2006-45 Francisco Covas, Wouter den Haan The authors show that debt and equity issuance are procyclical for most listed U.S. firms. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Financial stability JEL Code(s): E, E3, G, G1, G3
ToTEM: The Bank of Canada's New Quarterly Projection Model Technical Report No. 97 Stephen Murchison, Andrew Rennison The authors provide a detailed technical description of the Terms-of-Trade Economic Model (ToTEM), which replaced the Quarterly Projection Model (QPM) in December 2005 as the Bank's principal projection and policy-analysis model for the Canadian economy. Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models JEL Code(s): E, E1, E17, E2, E20, E3, E30, E4, E40, E5, E50, F, F4, F41
October 22, 2006 ToTEM: The Bank of Canada's New Projection and Policy-Analysis Model Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2006 Paul Fenton, Stephen Murchison The Terms-of-Trade Economic Model, or ToTEM, replaced the Quarterly Projection Model (QPM) in December 2005 as the Bank's principal projection and policy-analysis model for the Canadian economy. Benefiting from advances in economic modelling and computer power, ToTEM builds on the strengths of QPM, allowing for optimizing behaviour on the part of firms and households, both in and out of steady state, in a multi-product environment. The authors explain the motivation behind the development of ToTEM, provide an overview of the model and its calibration, and present several simulations to illustrate its key properties, concluding with some indications of how the model is expected to evolve going forward. Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models
The Macroeconomic Effects of Non-Zero Trend Inflation Staff Working Paper 2006-34 Robert Amano, Steve Ambler, Nooman Rebei The authors study the macroeconomic effects of non-zero trend inflation in a simple dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model with sticky prices. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models, Inflation and prices, Inflation targets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E3, E32
Linear and Threshold Forecasts of Output and Inflation with Stock and Housing Prices Staff Working Paper 2006-25 Greg Tkacz, Carolyn A. Wilkins The authors examine whether simple measures of Canadian equity and housing price misalignments contain leading information about output growth and inflation. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, E, E4