The last decade or so has seen a mushrooming of new sovereign debt databases covering long time spans for several countries. This represents an important breakthrough for economists who have long sought to, but been unable to tackle, first-order questions such as why countries have differential...

This paper studies stylized business cycle properties of household production in four industrialized countries (Canada, the United States, Germany, and Japan). We employ a dynamic small open economy business cycle model that incorporates a household production sector. We use the model to...

This paper examines the effect of the major Canada-U.S. trade agreements on the dynamics of business cycles and productivity in Canada. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its predecessor, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA), have led to a substantial expansion of trade...

This note examines recent developments in the Canadian labor market to provide a partial assessment of the magnitude and nature of industrial restructuring in Canada. The implications of industrial restructuring for the medium- and long-term prospects for the Canadian economy are examined. The...

This paper examines recent developments in the Canadian labor market. Using disaggregated labor market data, various hypotheses concerning the slow employment growth and rise in unemployment since 1990 are evaluated. The analysis indicates that a large part of the recent rise in the unemployment...

This paper re-examines empirical exchange rate puzzles by focusing on three OECD economies (Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) where primary commodities constitute a significant share of their exports. For Australia and New Zealand especially, we find that the U.S. dollar price of their...

This paper provides a quantitative assessment of the relative importance of different labor market adjustment mechanisms in Canada and the United States and also examines the effects of the unemployment insurance (UI) system on labor market adjustment. At the aggregate level, employment growth...