Coholder households simultaneously carry high-cost credit card debt and low-yield cash. We study the implications of this behavior for fiscal and monetary policy, finding that coholder households have smaller consumption responses in the short run but larger responses in the long run.
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.
We expect that potential output in Canada will grow by 2.3% and 2.5% in 2023 and 2024, respectively, and average slightly below 1.7% by 2027 as population growth moderates. Relative to the April 2023 assessment, growth is revised up in 2024, with a larger contribution from trend labour input due to higher-than-anticipated population growth. We revise down our estimates of growth over 2025–26.
We assess both the US and Canadian nominal neutral rates to be in the range of 2.25% to 3.25%, somewhat higher than the range of 2.0% to 3.0% in 2023. The assessed range is back to the level it was at in April 2019.
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.
The decline in safe real interest rates over the past three decades has reignited discussions on the neutral real interest rate, known as R*. We address the determinants and estimation methods of R*, as well as the factors influencing its decline and its future trajectory.
Governor Tiff Macklem speaks about the effectiveness—and limitations—of monetary policy. He highlights how raising and lowering the policy interest rate ultimately keeps inflation low, stable and predictable, despite significant shocks to the economy.
Governor Tiff Macklem discusses how monetary policy is working to bring inflation down—and how it has worked to return inflation to target over the last 25 years. He also talks about the limits of monetary policy, and why the right focus is on controlling inflation in the medium term.
We find that minority households see greater declines in housing returns and entries into homeownership than White households after a tightening of monetary policy. Our findings emphasize the unintended consequences of monetary policy on racial inequality in the housing market.