Césaire Meh

Senior Research Officer

Césaire Meh was appointed Senior Research Officer of Economic and Financial Research, effective November 1, 2017. In this capacity, he provides intellectual leadership to Bank-wide research, especially on issues related to the nexus between monetary policy and financial stability and to macroprudential policies. He has published extensively in peer-refereed journals and was recently a Visiting Research Scholar at Princeton University.

Most recently, Mr. Meh was the Managing Director of the International Economic Analysis Department. There, he was responsible for the management and strategic direction of the department, for providing policy advice and analysis on global economic and financial developments, and for participating in various international policy forums such as the G20, G7 and International Monetary Fund. He has represented the Bank in the G20 Framework Working Group, the Macroprudential Supervision Group of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and the Macroeconomic Assessment Group of the Financial Stability Board. For the latter, he led the production of the Bank of Canada report, Strengthening International Capital and Liquidity Standards: A Macroeconomic Impact Assessment for Canada. He also chaired the workstream on the implementation of the Basel III countercyclical capital buffer.

Mr. Meh joined the Bank in 2001 as an economist in the former Monetary and Financial Analysis Department (MFA). He increasingly assumed greater responsibilities in his roles as Principal Researcher, Assistant Director of the monetary financial modelling division in MFA, Senior Research Director in the Canadian Economic Analysis Department and Senior Policy Director in the Financial Stability Department (FSD). He was then named the Deputy Managing Director of FSD, where he assisted the Managing Director in the management of the department and oversaw FSD’s contributions to the Bank’s semi-annual Financial System Review and the work on bail-ins of large Canadian banks, as well as its support for the Bank in its role as lender of last resort.

Mr. Meh’s research has focused on bank capital in macroeconomic models, the nexus between financial stability and monetary policy; the design of macroprudential policies; the distributional consequences of monetary policy; the mix between monetary, fiscal and macroprudential policies; and, more recently, fintech.

Born in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast, Mr. Meh holds a PhD in economics from Western University and a master’s degree in economics from Université Laval.

Contact

Senior Research Officer
Economic and Financial Research

Bank of Canada
234 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON, K1A 0G9

Curriculum vitae

Latest

September 8, 2018

Investing in Monetary Policy Independence in a Small Open Economy

Remarks Stephen S. Poloz, Césaire Meh Monetary Policy Spillovers in a Financially Integrated World Copenhagen, Denmark
Governor Poloz discusses policies that can help central banks keep the ability to pursue independent monetary policy in a financially integrated global economy.
Content Type(s): Press, Speeches Topic(s): Fiscal Policy, Inflation targets, International topics, Monetary Policy, Monetary policy implementation

The Welfare Cost of Inflation Revisited: The Role of Financial Innovation and Household Heterogeneity

Staff Working Paper 2018-40 Shutao Cao, Césaire Meh, José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, Yaz Terajima
We document that, across households, the money consumption ratio increases with age and decreases with consumption, and that there has been a large increase in the money consumption ratio during the recent era of very low interest rates. We construct an overlapping generations (OLG) model of money holdings for transaction purposes subject to age (older households use more money), cohort (younger generations are exposed to better transaction technology), and time effects (nominal interest rates affect money holdings).
Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Inflation: costs and benefits JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E4, E41

Housing Market Dynamics and Macroprudential Policy

Staff Working Paper 2016-31 Gabriel Bruneau, Ian Christensen, Césaire Meh
We perform an analysis to determine how well the introduction of a countercyclical loanto- value (LTV) ratio can reduce household indebtedness and housing price fluctuations compared with a monetary policy rule augmented with house price inflation.
Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Financial stability, Housing, Monetary policy framework, Transmission of monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E4, E42, H, H2, H23
June 11, 2015

Assessing Vulnerabilities in the Canadian Financial System

Financial System Review - June 2015 Ian Christensen, Gitanjali Kumar, Césaire Meh, Lorie Zorn
The authors present the four common cyclical vulnerabilities that appear in financial systems, providing examples of qualitative and quantitative indicators used to monitor these vulnerabilities across different sectors. They also discuss other inputs to the vulnerability assessment and to the internal process used at the Bank of Canada for identifying, evaluating and communicating vulnerabilities and risks, and highlight some of the key challenges in assessing financial system vulnerabilities and risks.
Content Type(s): Publications, Financial System Review Article Topic(s): Financial stability JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G1, G10, G2, G20

Effects of Funding Portfolios on the Credit Supply of Canadian Banks

Staff Working Paper 2015-10 H. Evren Damar, Césaire Meh, Yaz Terajima
This paper studies how banks simultaneously manage the two sides of their balance sheet and its implications for bank risk taking and real economic activity. First, we analyze how changes in funding affect the supply of bank loans.
Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Financial Institutions, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, G, G2, G21

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Other

Refereed Journals

Other Publications

  • "Essays in Entrepreneurship and Taxation".
    Doctorate Dissertation, University of Western Ontario, May 2001."Cycle économique dans une petite économie ouverte: cas du Canada."
    Master's Dissertation, Université Laval, August 1996.

Other Research Papers

  • "Bank Leverage Regulation and Macroeconomics Dynamics,"
    (with Kevin Moran). Manuscript, June 2010.
  • "Countercyclical Loan-to-Value Ratios and Monetary Policy"
    (with Ian Christensen). Manuscript, June 2010.
  • "Optimal Monetary Policy and Macrofinancial Risk: Should Monetary Policy Respond to Emerging Financial Imbalances?"
    (with Jeannine Bailliu and Yahong Zhang). Manuscript, September 2010.

Research in Progress

  • "Inflation, Demand for Liquidity, and Welfare,"
    (with Shutao Cao, Victor Rios-Rull and Yaz Terajima)
  • "Effects of Funding Portfolios on Credit Supplies of Canadian Banks,"
    (with Evren Damar and Yaz Terajima)
  • "Firm Size, Technology Adoption Costs and Aggregate Productivity,"
    (with Danny Leung and Yaz Terajima).
  • "Price Stability and Nominal Debt,"
    (with Vincenzo Quadrini and Yaz Terajima).

Archives

Speeches

Bank Publications

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Western Ontario (2001)
  • M.A., Université Laval (1996)
  • BSc. Computer Science, Institut Supérieur de l'Enseignement Technique (1993)

Research Interests

  • macroeconomics and finance
  • monetary theory and policy
  • nexus financial stability-monetary policy
  • financial economics
  • public finance

RePEc

Césaire Meh

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