It is generally accepted that convergence is well established for regional Canadian per capita outputs. The authors present evidence that long-run movements are driven by two stochastic common trends in this time series. This evidence casts doubt on the convergence hypothesis for Canada. Another...

We consider the fundamental issue of what makes a “good” probability forecast for a central bank operating within an inflation targeting framework. We provide two examples in which the candidate forecasts comfortably outperform those from benchmark specifications by conventional statistical...

This paper contributes to the policy evaluation literature by developing new strategies to study alternative policy rules. We compare optimal rules to simple rules within canonical monetary policy models. In our context, an optimal rule represents the solution to an intertemporal optimization...