This paper investigates the importance of U.S. macroeconomic news in driving low-frequency fluctuations in the term structure of interest rates in Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom. We follow two complementary approaches: First, we apply a regression-based framework that aggregates the...

We propose a novel framework to analyze how policy-makers can manage risks to the median projection and risks specific to the tail of gross domestic product (GDP) growth. By combining a quantile regression of GDP growth with a vector autoregression, we show that monetary and macroprudential...

Recent events in financial markets have underlined the importance of analyzing the link between the financial health of banks and real economic activity. This paper contributes to this analysis by constructing a dynamic general equilibrium model in which the balance sheet of banks affects the...

In the United States, 30% of households are coholders who simultaneously borrow on credit cards and hold liquid assets. This generates a rich distribution of gross wealth positions that underpins the distribution of net wealth often used to calibrate macroeconomic models. We show that, beyond...

The goal of this paper is to investigate what type of information from Bank of Canada communication statements or the market commentary based on these statements has a significant effect on the volatility or level of returns in a short-term interest rate market. Two different text mining methods...

Inflation expectations are a key determinant of actual and future inflation and thus matter for the conduct of monetary policy. We study how firms form their inflation expectations using quarterly firm-level data from the Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey, spanning the 2001 to 2015...

We consider boundedly rational agents who do not plan over the infinite future but make trading plans at a finite, arbitrary horizon. We investigate the role of that horizon in the price dynamics of an asset in a Lucas tree model. We then design a laboratory experiment to test our theoretical...

We use controlled laboratory experiments to test the causal effects of central bank communication on economic expectations and to distinguish the underlying mechanisms of those effects. In an experiment where subjects learn to forecast economic variables, we find that central bank communication...

The period from 1914 to 1935 in the United States is unique in that it was the only time that both privately-issued bank notes (national bank notes) and central bank-issued bank notes (Federal Reserve notes) were simultaneously in circulation. This paper describes some lessons relevant to...

In recent years, there have been rapid technological innovations in retail payments. Such dramatic changes in the economics of payment systems have led to questions regarding whether there is consumer demand for cash. The entry of these new products and services has resulted in significant...