This paper examines empirically the impact of financial stress on the transmission of monetary policy shocks in Canada. The model used is a threshold vector autoregression in which a regime change occurs if financial stress conditions cross a critical threshold. Using the financial stress index...

This report presents a simple theorretical model that shows the quantitative impact of the increased interest rate premiums on economic performance. Some evidence is presented that suggests high Canadian interest rate premiums were an important factor explaining the general weakness of economic...

The authors explore the usefulness of macroeconomic models in analyzing global economic developments by examining movements in commodity prices between July 2007 and July 2008. They use the Bank of Canada's version of the Global Economy Model and investigate the longerterm outlook for commodity...

This paper compares price-level-path targeting (PT) with inflation targeting (IT) in a sticky-price, dynamic, general equilibrium model augmented with imperfections in both the debt and equity markets. Using a Bayesian approach, we estimate this model for the Canadian economy. We show that the...

The author provides a non-technical explanation of the role played by the exchange rate in Canada's inflation-targeting monetary policy. He reviews the motivation for inflation targeting and describes the monetary transmission mechanism. Though the exchange rate is an integral component of the...

The author examines the impact of economic uncertainty on the demand for money. Using a general-equilibrium theory, he argues that in a world inhabited by risk-averse agents, who are constantly making portfolio decisions against a backdrop of macroeconomic uncertainty, the demand for money is a...

We use a method similar to Google's PageRank procedure to rank banks in the Canadian Large Value Transfer System (LVTS). Along the way we obtain estimates of the payment processing speeds for the individual banks. These differences in processing speeds are essential for explaining why observed...

The author re-examines the demand-for-money theory in an intertemporal optimization model. The demand for real money balances is derived to be a function of real income and the rates of return of all financial assets traded in the economy. Unlike the traditional money-demand relation, however,...

Financial innovations and the removal of the reserve requirements in the early 1990s have made the distinction between demand and notice deposits arbitrary. This classification issue has affected those narrow monetary aggregates (gross and net M1) that rely on a proper distinction for their...