Using a monetary search model, Rocheteau, Rupert and Wright (2007) show that the relationship between inflation and unemployment can be positive or negative depending on the primitives of the model. The key features are indivisible labor, nonseparable preferences and bargaining. Their results...

This paper uses a small-open economy model for the Canadian economy to examine the optimal Taylor-type monetary policy rule that stabilizes output and inflation in an environment where endogenous boom-bust cycles in house prices can occur. The model shows that boom-bust cycles in house prices...

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...

Using Bayesian methods, we estimate a small open economy model in which consumers face limits to credit determined by the value of their housing stock. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the role of collateralized household debt in the Canadian business cycle. Our findings show that the...

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...

Using a closed-economy model, Jensen (2002) and Walsh (2003) have, respectively, shown that a policy regime that optimally targets nominal income growth (NIT) or the change in the output gap (SLT) outperforms a regime that targets inflation, because NIT and SLT induce more inertia in the actions...

In this paper, we develop a new way to test hypotheses about policy-makers' targets, and we implement that test for Canadian monetary policy. If, for example, the Bank of Canada is using interest rates to target an inflation rate of 2 per cent and there is an 8-quarter lag in the effect of the...

Although the concept of monetary policy lag has historical roots deep in the monetary economics literature, relatively little attention has been paid to the idea. In this paper, we build on Svensson’s (1997) inflation targeting framework by explicitly taking into account the lagged effect of...

Monetary policy can be implemented effectively without reserve requirements as long as cost incentives ensure a predictable demand for settlement balances. A central bank can then achieve the level of short-term interest rates that it desires, using market-oriented instruments only. In Canada,...