Did supply disruptions and cost pressures play a role in rising inflation in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic? Using data collected from websites of large retailers in multiple sectors and countries, we show that shortages may indicate transitory inflationary pressures.
I use a search-theoretic model of money to study how open market operations affect the conduct of monetary policy and what this means for households along the wealth distribution. In the model, households vary in the size and composition of their portfolios, which in turn implies that they may be unevenly affected by open market operations.
Over the last few decades, real interest rates have trended downward. The most common explanation is that this reflects depressed demand due to demographic, technological and other real factors. We explore the claim that these trends may have been amplified by certain features of monetary policy.
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.
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.
The consumer price index (CPI) tracks how much the average Canadian household spends, and how that changes over time. At the Bank of Canada, we use it to target inflation.
Firms are at the forefront of adopting new technology. Using survey data from a global network of central banks, we assess the effects of digitalization on firms’ pricing and employment decisions.
Standard monetary models adopt an infinite horizon with discounting. Testing these models in the lab requires implementing this horizon within a limited time frame. We compare three approaches to such an implementation and discuss their relative advantages.
We compare the determinants of consumer inflation expectations in the US and Canada by analyzing two current surveys. We find that Canadian consumers rely more on professional forecasts and the history of actual inflation when forming their expectations, while US consumers rely more on their own lagged expectations.