The author evaluates the effect of the Bank of Canada's conditional commitment regarding the target overnight rate on longer-term market interest rates by taking into account the relationship between interest rates, inflation, and unemployment rates. By using vector autoregressive models of...

The aim of this introductory paper is to put into perspective some key methodological and practical issues raised by the analysis and implementation of Sustainable Development (SD) approaches in recent years. The key point made here is that, while SD analysis has gained in depth and...

This paper analyzes the role of standing facilities in the determination of the demand for reserves in the overnight money market. In particular, we study how the asymmetric nature of the deposit and lending facilities could be used as a powerful policy tool for the simultaneous control of...

This paper discusses how the choice of central banks' operating targets influences the use of their monetary policy instruments and how the latter affect the central bank's balance sheet. This is of particular interest, since the monetary conditionality in IMF-supported programs has...

It is commonly observed that central banks respond gradually to economic shocks, moving the interest rate in small discrete steps in the same direction over an extended period of time. This paper examines the empirical evidence regarding central banks' smoothing of interest rates, paying...

The limited supply of government securities in some industrial countries has important ramifications for the operating techniques used by central banks to implement monetary policy, provide credit to the financial sector, and also for the assets they hold on their balance sheets. The paper...