New Estimates of the Canadian Money Stock: 1871-1967

In this paper, the authors construct historical data series beginning in 1871 for Canadian M1, M2, and monetary base. The new series are at a monthly frequency and use the Bank of Canada's definition of the monetary aggregates. Institutional and reporting changes, however, make perfect backwards extrapolation of the Bank's series impossible: there are only end-of-month data rather than average weekly (since January 1994, daily) data and the authors cannot precisely match savings accounts (at chartered banks and trust companies) that are included in the modern monetary aggregates. Their adjustments for these changes and their impact on the aggregates are documented