Business fluctuations and cycles

• June 5, 2025

  Talking to Canadians: How real-world insights shape monetary policy

  Remarks Sharon Kozicki C.D. Howe Institute Toronto, Ontario

  Deputy Governor Sharon Kozicki talks about how the Bank of Canada is using non-traditional data to better inform its monetary policy decisions.

  Content Type(s): Press, Speeches and appearances, Remarks Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credibility, Monetary policy and uncertainty, Recent economic and financial developments, Trade integration
• May 8, 2025

  Release of the Financial Stability Report

  Opening statement Tiff Macklem, Carolyn Rogers Ottawa, Ontario

  Press conference following the release of the Financial Stability Report.

  Content Type(s): Press, Speeches and appearances, Opening statements Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Debt management, Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, International financial markets, Recent economic and financial developments
• March 10, 2025

  Price check: Inflation in Canada

  Sharon Kozicki, Jill Vardy, Laurence Savoie-Chabot

  Why prices change, and what it means for the economy.

  Content Type(s): Publications, The Economy, Plain and Simple Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credibility, Expectations, Inflation and prices, Inflation targets, Inflation: costs and benefits, Monetary policy framework, Monetary policy transmission, Price stability

• Quantile VARs and Macroeconomic Risk Forecasting

  Staff Working Paper 2025-4 Stéphane Surprenant

  This paper provides an extensive evaluation of the performance of quantile vector autoregression (QVAR) to forecast macroeconomic risk. Generally, QVAR outperforms standard benchmark models. Moreover, QVAR and QVAR augmented with factors perform equally well. Both are adequate for modeling macroeconomic risks.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, C55, E, E3, E37

• Differentiable, Filter Free Bayesian Estimation of DSGE Models Using Mixture Density Networks

  Staff Working Paper 2025-3 Chris Naubert

  I develop a method for Bayesian estimation of globally solved, non-linear macroeconomic models. The method uses a mixture density network to approximate the initial state distribution. The mixture density network results in more reliable posterior inference compared with the case when the initial states are set to their steady-state values.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Economic models JEL Code(s): C, C6, C61, C63, E, E3, E37, E4, E47

• Does Unconventional Monetary and Fiscal Policy Contribute to the COVID Inflation Surge in the US?

  Staff Working Paper 2024-38 Jing Cynthia Wu, Yinxi Xie, Ji Zhang

  We assess whether unconventional monetary and fiscal policy implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. contribute to the 2021-2023 inflation surge through the lens of several different empirical methodologies and establish a null result.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Central bank research, Fiscal policy, Inflation and prices, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, E52, E6, E63

• The Output-Inflation Trade-off in Canada

  Staff Discussion Paper 2024-7 Stefano Gnocchi, Fanny McKellips, Rodrigo Sekkel, Laure Simon, Yinxi Xie, Yang Zhang

  We explain how the Bank of Canada’s policy models capture the trade-off between output and inflation in Canada. We provide new estimates of the trade-off and contrast them with those in the Bank’s macroeconomic models.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, E52

• Endogenous Credibility and Wage-Price Spirals

  Staff Working Paper 2024-14 Olena Kostyshyna, Tolga Özden, Yang Zhang

  We quantitively assess the risks of a wage-price spiral occurring in Canada over history. We find the risk of a wage-price spiral increases when the inflation expectations become unanchored and the credibility of central banks declines.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credibility, Inflation and prices, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): C, C2, C22, E, E0, E00, E4, E47, E7

• Benchmarks for assessing labour market health: 2024 update

  Staff Analytical Note 2024-8 Erik Ens, Alexander Lam, Kurt See, Gabriela Galassi

  We assess the health of the Canadian labour market. We find that it has seen gradual but material easing since 2023, amid some signs of structural changes.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods, Labour markets, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E2, J, J2, J3, J6

• Forecasting Recessions in Canada: An Autoregressive Probit Model Approach

  Staff Working Paper 2024-10 Antoine Poulin-Moore, Kerem Tuzcuoglu

  We forecast recessions in Canada using an autoregressive (AR) probit model. The results highlight the short-term predictive power of the US economic activity and suggest that financial indicators are reliable predictors of Canadian recessions. In addition, the suggested model meaningfully improves the ability to forecast Canadian recessions, relative to a variety of probit models proposed in the Canadian literature.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C5, C51, C53, E, E3, E32