Business fluctuations and cycles
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June 10, 2021
Going digital has helped the economy through COVID-19
Deputy Governor Timothy Lane talks about the Bank’s decision yesterday to leave the policy rate unchanged. He also discusses how adopting digital technologies supported resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. -
June 10, 2021
The digital transformation and Canada’s economic resilience
Deputy Governor Tim Lane talks about the Bank’s latest interest rate announcement and discusses how the digital transformation has supported resilience through the pandemic and may be adding to the economy’s growth potential. -
Can regulating bank capital help prevent and mitigate financial downturns?
Countercyclical capital buffers are regulatory measures developed in response to the global financial crisis of 2008–09. This note focuses on how time-varying capital buffers can improve financial stability in Canada -
Occasionally Binding Constraints in Large Models: A Review of Solution Methods
Solving macroeconomic models is difficult. One challenge is the occasionally binding constraint of the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates. This paper reviews various ways to solve models that include this feature. -
Imperfect Banking Competition and Macroeconomic Volatility: A DSGE Framework
How do banks adjust their loan rate markup in response to macroeconomic shocks? -
The Bank of Canada COVID‑19 stringency index: measuring policy response across provinces
We construct an index that systematically measures and tracks the stringency of government policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic across Canadian provinces. Researchers can use this stringency index to analyze how the pandemic is affecting the economy. -
Qualitative Field Research in Monetary Policy Making
Central banks conduct research involving in-depth interviews with external parties—but little is known about how this information affects monetary policy. We address this gap by analyzing open-ended interviews with senior central bank economic and policy staff who work closely with policy decision-makers. -
Labor Market Policies During an Epidemic
We study the labour market and welfare effects of expanding unemployment insurance benefits and introducing payroll subsidies during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that both policies are complementary and are beneficial to different types of workers. Payroll subsidies preserve the employment of workers in highly productive jobs, while unemployment insurance replaces lost income for workers who experience inevitable job loss. -
Can the Business Outlook Survey Help Improve Estimates of the Canadian Output Gap?
We investigate whether questions in the Bank of Canada’s Business Outlook Survey can provide useful signals for the output gap.