This report provides a detailed technical description of an updated version of the Terms-of-Trade Economic Model (ToTEM II), which replaced ToTEM (Murchison and Rennison 2006) in June 2011 as the Bank of Canada’s quarterly projection model for Canada. ToTEM has been improved along a number of...

Sampling units for the 2013 Methods-of-Payment Survey were selected through an approximate stratified random sampling design. To compensate for non-response and non-coverage, the observations are weighted through a raking procedure. The variance estimation of weighted estimates must take into...

Until recently, there have been few efforts to systematically measure and aggregate the nominal value of the different types of sovereign government debt in default. To help fill this gap, the Bank of Canada’s Credit Rating Assessment Group (CRAG) has developed a comprehensive database of...

Sample calibration is a procedure that utilizes sample and national-level demographic distribution information to weight survey participants. The objective of calibration is to weight the sample so that it is demographically representative of the target population. This technical report details...

The authors describe the key features of a new large-scale Canadian macroeconomic forecasting model developed over the past two years at the Bank of Canada. The new model, called LENS for Large Empirical and Semi-structural model, uses a methodology similar to the Federal Reserve Board’s...

Greater intervention by the public sector is often proposed as a solution to the increased speculation and excessive price volatility through to characterize today's competitive world financial system. However, before any ambitious policy responses can be contemplated, the question whether asset...

This report presents a simple theorretical model that shows the quantitative impact of the increased interest rate premiums on economic performance. Some evidence is presented that suggests high Canadian interest rate premiums were an important factor explaining the general weakness of economic...

Measures have been taken by the Bank of Canada to increase the transparency of Canadian monetary policy. This paper examines whether the greater transparency has improved financial markets’ understanding of the conduct of monetary policy. In theory, it should result in reduced conditional...

The Bank of Canada's version of the Global Economy Model (BoC-GEM) is derived from the model created at the International Monetary Fund by Douglas Laxton (IMF) and Paolo Pesenti (Federal Reserve Bank of New York and National Bureau of Economic Research). The GEM is a dynamic stochastic...

The Bank of Canada's new Quarterly Projection Model, QPM, Comnines the short-term dynamic properties necessary to support regular economic projections with the consistent behavioural structure necessary for policy analysis.