Interest rates
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Quantitative Easing and Long‐Term Yields in Small Open Economies
We compare the Federal Reserve’s asset purchase programs with those implemented by the Bank of England and the Swedish Riksbank, and the Swiss National Bank’s reserve expansion program. -
Monetary Policy Implementation in a Negative Rate Environment
Monetary policy implementation could, in theory, be constrained by deeply negative rates since overnight market participants may have an incentive to invest in cash rather than lend to other participants. -
Understanding Monetary Policy and its Effects: Evidence from Canadian Firms Using the Business Outlook Survey
This paper shows (i) that business sentiment, as captured by survey data, matters for monetary policy decisions in Canada, and (ii) how business perspectives are affected by monetary policy shocks. Measures of business sentiment (soft data) are shown to have systematic explanatory power for monetary policy decisions over and above typical Taylor rule variables. -
What Explains Month-End Funding Pressure in Canada?
The Canadian overnight repo market persistently shows signs of latent funding pressure around month-end periods. Both the overnight repo rate and Bank of Canada liquidity provision tend to rise in these windows. This paper proposes three non-mutually exclusive hypotheses to explain this phenomenon. -
11 May 2017 Unconventional Monetary Policy: The Perspective of a Small Open Economy
How do unconventional monetary policies like quantitative easing and negative interest rates affect domestic financial conditions and the broader economy in small open econo-mies, such as Canada? These policies are effective in depreciating the exchange rate in small open economies, while lower interest rates are also passed through to the economy, albeit only partially. When conventional monetary policy is close to its limits, fiscal policy may be a more important complement to monetary policy in a small economy, particularly if global demand for safe assets compresses long-term interest rates. -
Repo Market Functioning when the Interest Rate Is Low or Negative
This paper investigates how a low or negative overnight interest rate might affect the Canadian repo markets. The main conclusion is that the repo market for general collateral will continue to function effectively. -
What Fed Funds Futures Tell Us About Monetary Policy Uncertainty
The uncertainty around future changes to the Federal Reserve target rate varies over time. In our results, the main driver of uncertainty is a “path” factor signaling information about future policy actions, which is filtered from federal funds futures data. -
Comparing Forward Guidance and Neo-Fisherianism as Strategies for Escaping Liquidity Traps
What path should policy-makers select for the nominal rate when faced with a liquidity trap during which the effective lower bound binds? -
Capital Flows to Developing Countries: Is There an Allocation Puzzle?
Foreign direct investment inflows are positively related to growth across developing countries—but so are savings in excess of investment. I develop an explanation for this well-established puzzle by focusing on the limited availability of consumer credit in developing countries together with general equilibrium effects. -
A Primer on Neo-Fisherian Economics
Conventional models imply that central banks aiming to raise inflation should lower nominal rates and thus stimulate aggregate demand. However, several economists have recently challenged this conventional wisdom in favour of an alternative “neo-Fisherian’’ view under which higher nominal rates might in fact lead to higher inflation.