This technical note discusses the banking system structure, performance, and medium-term challenges for Switzerland. The note discusses that the Swiss banking sector has been undergoing a substantial consolidation over the last 10 years, but retains a rich collection of institutional types...

This Selected Issues paper highlights the Philippine growth performance led by the services sector. Average GDP growth is higher in the post-Asian crisis period in the Philippines, while the majority of the Philippines’s regional peers have experienced substantially lower growth in the...

Canadian housing prices are higher than levels consistent with current fundamentals in some provinces. The empirical estimates suggest that a 10 percent decline in housing prices would lead to a 11⁄4 percent decline in private consumption. The high level of household leverage and housing...

The Canadian monetary and fiscal policies have remained accommodative, reflecting in large measure the effective response to the crisis. Canada is expected to set the appropriate policy mix in the future, at a time of high uncertainty and significant external headwinds. Given the advanced stage...

This paper examines economic developments and policies in Canada during 1990–95. Spurred by the robust growth in the United States and the easing of monetary conditions between 1991 and 1993, economic growth in Canada continued to strengthen during 1994. Real GDP grew by 4.5 percent in 1994...

This Selected Issues paper addresses some of the key policy and economic challenges facing the Canadian economy. The paper presents a new approach to predicting the business cycle in the context of the Canadian economy. This approach uses a range of parametric and nonparametric tests to gauge...

This Selected Issues paper reviews Canada’s business tax system, looking at the incentive effects of the country’s business tax regime and their implications for output and employment. It presents estimates of marginal effective tax rates on corporate-source income in Canada and comparator...

This Selected Issues paper reviews empirical evidence on the main determinants of the real bilateral exchange rate between the Canadian and the U.S. dollars, with particular emphasis on the role played by cyclical and longer-term economic factors. The paper aims to identify the nature of the...

This Selected Issues paper reviews the factors that may explain high and persistent unemployment in Canada, with particular emphasis on the role that a decline in the relative cost of capital may have had on trend unemployment. The analysis suggests that in Canada a declining trend in the cost...