Using the Bank of Canada's main projection and policy-analysis model, ToTEM, this paper measures the welfare gains of switching from inflation targeting to price-level targeting under imperfect credibility. Following the policy change, private agents assign a probability to the event that the...

This paper compares the performance of simple inflation targeting (IT) and price-level path targeting (PLPT) rules to stabilize the macroeconomy, in response to a series of shocks, similar to those seen in Canada and the United States over the 1983 to 2004 period. The analysis is conducted in a...

How should independent central banks react if pressured by fiscal policymakers? We study an environment with strategic monetary-fiscal interactions where the central bank has a limited degree of commitment to follow policies over time and the fiscal authority has none. We contrast the...

This paper proposes a simple analytical method to determine the stationarity of an unnormalized variable from the solution to a normalized model i.e. a model whose variables must be expressed in relative terms or must be differenced for a solution to exist. The paper then applies the methodto...

This paper studies the interdependence between fiscal and monetary policies, and their joint role in the determination of the price level. The government is characterized by a long-run fiscal policy rule whereby a given fraction of the outstanding debt, say , is backed by the present discounted...

We analyze the impact of interest rate policy on financial stability in an environment where banks can experience runs on their short-term liabilities, forcing them to sell assets at fire-sale prices. Price adjustment frictions and a state-dependent risk of financial crisis create the...

We use narrative evidence along with a novel database of real-time data and forecasts from the Bank of Canada's staff economic projections from 1974 to 2015 to construct a new measure of monetary policy shocks and estimate the effects of monetary policy in Canada. We show that it is crucial to...

Various papers have suggested that Price-Level targeting is a welfare improving policy relative to Inflation targeting. From a practical standpoint, this raises an important yet unanswered question: What is the optimal price index to target? This paper derives the optimal price level targeting...

Inflation-targeting central banks around the world often state their inflation objectives with regard to the consumer price index (CPI). Yet the literature on optimal monetary policy based on models with nominal rigidities and more than one sector suggests that CPI inflation is not always the...

The days when secrecy and opacity were the bywords of central banking are gone. The advent of inflation targeting in the early 1990s acted as the catalyst for enhanced transparency and communications in the conduct of monetary policy. In the wake of the 2007 - 09 global financial crisis, this...