We study the cyclical properties of sales, regular price changes and average prices paid by consumers ("effective" prices) using data on prices and quantities sold for numerous retailers across many U.S. metropolitan areas. Inflation in the effective prices paid by consumers declines...

We present an incomplete markets model to understand the costs and benefits of increasing government debt when an increased demand for safety pushes the natural rate of interest below zero. A higher demand for safe assets causes the ZLB to bind, increasing unemployment. Higher government debt...

Countercyclical bank capital requirements have emerged as a popular regulatory tool to help smooth financial cycles. The idea is to reduce capital requirements when exogenous shocks cause aggregate bank capital to decrease so that regulation does not needlessly constrain banks' supply of credit....

Over the past 15 years, long-term interest rates have declined to levels not seen since the 1970s. This paper explores possible shifts in global savings and investment that have led to this fall in the world real interest rate. There are several key findings. First, the authors identify the...

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...

This paper develops a multi-sector New Keynesian model of a small open economy that includes commodity, manufacturing, non-tradable, and import sectors. Price and wage rigidities are sector specific, modelled à la Calvo-Yun style contracts. Labour and capital are imperfectly mobile across...

The primary objective of this paper is to compare a variety of joint models of the term structure of interest rates and the macroeconomy. To this end, we consider six alternative approaches. Three of these models follow from the work of Diebold and Li (2003) with a generalization in Bolder...

The Large Value Transfer System (LVTS) is Canada's main electronic interbank funds transfer system that financial institutions use daily to transmit thousands of payments worth several billions of dollars. The LVTS is different than real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems because, while each...

We measure uncertainty surrounding the central bank's future policy rates using implied volatility computed from interest rate option prices and realized volatility computed from intraday prices of interest rate futures. Both volatility measures show that uncertainty decreased following the most...

This paper reviews some recent developments in digital currency, focusing on platform-sponsored currencies such as Facebook Credits. In a model of platform management, we find that it will not likely be profitable for such currencies to expand to become fully convertible competitors to...