In this article we describe preliminary estimates of a model of the Canadian financial system. At the present time, the model explains the behaviour of the authorities, the chartered banks, the public, and the trust and mortgage loan companies. The variables explained include monetary...

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,...

The paper evaluates the costs and benefits of fiscal consolidation using simulations based on the IMFs global dynamic general equilibrium model GIMF. Over the longer run, well-targeted permanent reductions in budget deficits can lead to a considerable increase in both the growth rate and the...

[eng] This article discusses several of the medium-term orientation O.E.C.D. countries economic policies in the 1980s, concentrating monetary and fiscal instruments. The developments that led to the adoption of such a « medium-term egy », and the apparent analytical rationale for it, are first...

This article summarizes the proceedings of a conference hosted by the Bank of Canada in May 1998. This was the second Bank conference to focus directly on issues concerning financial markets. The topic for 1998-the extraction of information from the prices of financial assets-has been an area of...

This article summarizes the proceedings of a conference hosted by the Bank of Canada in November 1999. Three major themes emerged at the conference. The first concerned uncertainty about the transmission mechanism by which monetary policy affects output and inflation. The second concerned the...

The spread between long-term and short-term interest rates has proven to be an excellent predictor of changes of economic activity in Canada. As a general rule, when long-term interest rates have been much above short-term rates, strong increases in output have followed within about a year;...

Long-term Canada-U.S. interest spreads have changed remarkably during the 1990s. The unusually wide spreads of the first half of the decade have given way to an unprecedented run of negative yield differentials. In this article, the author examines the conceptual aspects of yields on...

In 1994, broad monetary aggregates such as M2+ grew at an unusually slow rate, indicating a continuation of low inflation. Narrow money, M1, ballooned early in the year, partly for technical reasons. However, its overall deceleration for the year as a whole would be consistent with lower output...