Strengthening Canada’s Economic Toolkit: Improving the Inflation Targeting Framework

By Maurice Obstfeld, Douglas Laxton, Yulia Ustyugova, and Hou Wang

For the past 25 years, Canada’s monetary policy framework has been working well. Headline inflation averaged 1.9 percent, 1994–2015, and long-term inflation expectations have been very well anchored to the 2 percent target (Chart 1).

Monetary Policy and Financial Stability: Canada’s House-Price Dilemma

By Cheng Hoon Lim

(Version in Français)

Canada’s housing market is sizzling hot and the Bank of Canada has a monetary policy dilemma: increase interest rates to cool the housing market would hurt borrowers and the economy; keep interest rates low adds fuel to the borrowing that led to the rise in housing prices and in household debt. What to do?