We provide an analysis of cash trends in Canada before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on the pandemic period, we explore the implications on demand for, use of and access to cash. We find that cash demand has been strong pre-pandemic and increased sharply during the pandemic. While...

How has digitalization shaped the landscape of Canada's economy? In this paper, we seek to grasp the breadthof digitalization. We define digitalization and distinguish it from other related concepts, such as information and communication technologies (ICT) and the digital economy. We then assess...

What are the implications of digitalization for prices? This paper explores this question by looking at the various channels through which digitalization can affect prices. First, we assess the importance of the direct channel - the prices of digital goods and services in the consumer price...

With the rapid digitization of financial transactions, central banks have given considerable focus in recent years to the research and development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). While CBDCs could offer several advantages, there are concerns about end-user privacy. Traditional...

We introduce bounded rationality, along the lines of Gabaix (2020), in a canonical New Keynesian model calibrated to match Canadian macroeconomic data since Canada's adoption of inflation targeting. We use the model to provide a quantitative assessment of the macroeconomic impact of flexible...

This paper discusses how central banking is evolving in light of recent experience, with particular emphasis on the incorporation of uncertainty into policy decision-making. The sort of post-crisis uncertainty that central banks are dealing with today is more profound than that which is...

A key issue in the renewal of the inflation-control agreement is the question of the appropriate level of the inflation target. Many observers have raised concerns that with the reduction in the neutral rate, and the experience of the recent financial crisis, the effective lower bound (ELB) is...

Bank of Canada research done prior to the most recent renewal of the inflation-control agreement in 2011 concluded that the benefits associated with a target below 2 per cent were insufficient to justify the increased risk of being constrained by the zero lower bound (ZLB) on nominal interest...

The use of bank notes in Canada for payments has declined consistently for some time, and similar trends are evident in other countries. This has led some observers to predict a cashless society in the future. This paper considers the implications of the abandonment of the use of cash in the...

While central banks cannot provide complete foresight with respect to their future policy actions, it is in the interests of both central banks and market participants that central banks be transparent about their reaction functions and how they may evolve in response to economic developments,...