E22 - Capital; Investment; Capacity
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Potential Output in Canada: 2018 Reassessment
This note summarizes the reassessment of potential output, conducted by the Bank of Canada for the April 2018 Monetary Policy Report. Overall, the profile for potential output growth is expected to remain flat at 1.8 per cent between 2018 and 2020 and 1.9 per cent in 2021. -
Credit Crunches from Occasionally Binding Bank Borrowing Constraints
We present a model in which banks and other financial intermediaries face both occasionally binding borrowing constraints and costs of equity issuance. Near the steady state, these intermediaries can raise equity finance at no cost through retained earnings. -
Alternative Scenario to the October 2017 MPR Base-Case Projection: Higher Potential Growth
We construct an alternative scenario in which trend labour input and business investment are stronger than that expected in the Bank of Canada’s base-case projection in the October 2017 Monetary Policy Report. -
A Structural Interpretation of the Recent Weakness in Business Investment
Since 2012, business investment growth has slowed considerably in advanced economies, averaging a little less than 2 per cent versus the 4 per cent growth rates experienced in the period leading up to crisis. Several recent studies have attributed a large part of the weakness in business investment to cyclical factors, including soft aggregate demand, and, to a lesser degree, heightened uncertainty and tighter financial conditions. -
May 11, 2017 Why Is Global Business Investment So Weak? Some Insights from Advanced Economies
Various drivers of business investment can be used to explain the underwhelming performance of investment in advanced economies since the global financial crisis, particularly since 2014. The slow growth in aggregate demand cannot by itself explain the full extent of the recent weakness in investment, which appears to be linked primarily to the collapse of global commodity prices and a rise in economic uncertainty. Looking ahead, business investment growth is likely to remain slower than in the pre-crisis period, largely because of structural factors such as population aging. -
April 2017 Annual Reassessment of Potential Output Growth in Canada
This note summarizes the Bank of Canada’s annual reassessment of potential output growth, conducted for the April 2017 Monetary Policy Report. Potential output growth is projected to increase from 1.3 per cent in 2017 to 1.6 per cent by 2020. -
Firm-Specific Shocks and Aggregate Fluctuations
In order to understand what drives aggregate fluctuations, many macroeconomic models point to aggregate shocks and discount the contribution of firm-specific shocks. Recent research from other developed countries, however, has found that aggregate fluctuations are in part driven by idiosyncratic shocks to large firms. -
Crude Oil Prices and Fixed-Asset Cash Spending in the Oil and Gas Industry: Findings from VAR Models
This note investigates the relationship between crude oil prices and investment in the energy sector. We employ a set of vector autoregression (VAR) models (unconstrained VAR, vector error-correction and Bayesian VAR) to formalize the relationship between the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) benchmark and fixed-asset cash spending in the oil and gas extraction and support activities sector of the Canadian economy. -
How Fast Can China Grow? The Middle Kingdom’s Prospects to 2030
Given its size and importance for global commodity markets, the question of how fast the Chinese economy can grow over the medium term is an important one. This paper addresses this question by examining the evolution of the supply side of the Chinese economy over history and projecting how it will evolve over the next 15 years. -
What Is Behind the Weakness in Global Investment?
The recovery in private business investment globally remains extremely weak more than seven years after the financial crisis. This paper contributes to the ongoing policy debate on the factors behind this weakness by analyzing the role of growth prospects and uncertainty in explaining developments in non-residential private business investment in large advanced economies since the crisis.