IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/13605.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Canada's Pioneering Experience with a Flexible Exchange Rate in the 1950s:(Hard) Lessons Learned for Monetary Policy in a Small Open Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Michael D. Bordo
  • Ali Dib
  • Lawrence Schembri

Abstract

This paper revisits Canada's pioneering experience with floating exchange rate over the period 1950-1962. It examines whether the floating rate was the best option for Canada in the 1950s by developing and estimating a New Keynesian small open economy model of the Canadian economy. The model is then used to conduct a counterfactual analysis of the impact of different monetary policies and exchange rate regimes. The main finding indicates that the flexible exchange rate helped reduce the volatility of key macro-economic variables. The Canadian monetary authorities, however, clearly did not understand all of the implications of conducting monetary policy under a flexible exchange rate and a high degree of capital mobility. The paper confirms that monetary policy was more volatile in the post-1957 period and Canada's macroeconomic performance suffered as a result.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael D. Bordo & Ali Dib & Lawrence Schembri, 2007. "Canada's Pioneering Experience with a Flexible Exchange Rate in the 1950s:(Hard) Lessons Learned for Monetary Policy in a Small Open Economy," NBER Working Papers 13605, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13605
    Note: ME IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13605.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frank Schorfheide, 2000. "Loss function-based evaluation of DSGE models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(6), pages 645-670.
    2. Ali Dib, 2011. "Monetary Policy in Estimated Models of Small Open and Closed Economies," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 22(5), pages 769-796, November.
    3. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pierre L. Siklos, 2010. "Revisiting the Coyne Affair: a singular event that changed the course of Canadian monetary history," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(3), pages 994-1015, August.
    2. Michael D. Bordo & Christopher M. Meissner, 2015. "Growing Up to Stability? Financial Globalization, Financial Development and Financial Crises," NBER Working Papers 21287, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Thomas J Carter & Rhys Mendes & Lawrence L Schembri, 2018. "Credibility, Flexibility and Renewal: The Evolution of Inflation Targeting in Canada," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: John Simon & Maxwell Sutton (ed.),Central Bank Frameworks: Evolution or Revolution?, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    4. Michael D. Bordo & Owen F. Humpage & Anna J. Schwartz, 2015. "US Intervention during the Bretton Woods Era, 1962–1973," NBER Chapters, in: Strained Relations: US Foreign-Exchange Operations and Monetary Policy in the Twentieth Century, pages 120-209, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Siklos, Pierre L., 2009. "Not quite as advertised: Canada's managed float in the 1950s and Bank of Canada intervention," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 413-435, December.
    6. Kwo Ping Tam, 2016. "A New Comparative Study On The Free-Floating And Currency Board Regimes In Hong Kong," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(3), pages 218-238, April.
    7. Chayawadee Chai-anant & Runchana Pongsaparn & Kessarin Tansuwanarat, 2008. "Roles of Exchange Rate in Monetary Policy under Inflation Targeting: A Case Study for Thailand," Working Papers 2008-03, Monetary Policy Group, Bank of Thailand.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alejandro Justiniano & Bruce Preston, 2010. "Monetary policy and uncertainty in an empirical small open-economy model," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 93-128.
    2. Ian Christensen & Paul Corrigan & Caterina Mendicino & Shin‐Ichi Nishiyama, 2016. "Consumption, housing collateral and the Canadian business cycle," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(1), pages 207-236, February.
    3. Zheng, Tingguo & Guo, Huiming, 2013. "Estimating a small open economy DSGE model with indeterminacy: Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 642-652.
    4. Riccardo Cristadoro & Andrea Gerali & Stefano Neri & Massimiliano Pisani, 2006. "Nominal Rigidities in an Estimated Two Country," Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 162, Society for Computational Economics.
    5. Thomas Lubik & Frank Schorfheide, 2006. "A Bayesian Look at New Open Economy Macroeconomics," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2005, Volume 20, pages 313-382, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Adnan Haider Bukhari & Safdar Ullah Khan, 2008. "A Small Open Economy DSGE Model for Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 47(4), pages 963-1008.
    7. Marco Ratto & Werner Roeger, 2005. "An estimated open-economy model for the EURO area," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 84, Society for Computational Economics.
    8. Yongsung Chang & Taeyoung Doh & Frank Schorfheide, 2007. "Non-stationary Hours in a DSGE Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(6), pages 1357-1373, September.
    9. Eric Jondeau & Jean-Guillaume Sahuc, 2005. "Testing Heterogeneity within the Euro Area Using a Structural Multi-Country Model," Documents de recherche 05-06, Centre d'Études des Politiques Économiques (EPEE), Université d'Evry Val d'Essonne.
    10. Cúrdia, Vasco & Finocchiaro, Daria, 2013. "Monetary regime change and business cycles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 756-773.
    11. Pau Rabanal, 2009. "Inflation Differentials between Spain and the EMU: A DSGE Perspective," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(6), pages 1141-1166, September.
    12. John B. Taylor & Volker Wieland, 2012. "Surprising Comparative Properties of Monetary Models: Results from a New Model Database," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(3), pages 800-816, August.
    13. Cai, Michael & Del Negro, Marco & Giannoni, Marc P. & Gupta, Abhi & Li, Pearl & Moszkowski, Erica, 2019. "DSGE forecasts of the lost recovery," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 1770-1789.
    14. Del Negro, Marco & Schorfheide, Frank, 2008. "Forming priors for DSGE models (and how it affects the assessment of nominal rigidities)," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 1191-1208, October.
    15. Matteo Iacoviello & Fabio Schiantarelli & Scott Schuh, 2011. "Input And Output Inventories In General Equilibrium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1179-1213, November.
    16. Adolfson, Malin & Laseen, Stefan & Linde, Jesper & Villani, Mattias, 2007. "Bayesian estimation of an open economy DSGE model with incomplete pass-through," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 481-511, July.
    17. Sims, Christopher A., 2008. "Improving monetary policy models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 2460-2475, August.
    18. Ippei Fujiwara & Yasuo Hirose & Mototsugu Shintani, 2011. "Can News Be a Major Source of Aggregate Fluctuations? A Bayesian DSGE Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(1), pages 1-29, February.
    19. Lindé, Jesper & Smets, Frank & Wouters, Rafael, 2016. "Challenges for Central Banks´ Macro Models," Working Paper Series 323, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    20. Christoffel, Kai & Kuester, Keith & Linzert, Tobias, 2006. "Identifying the role of labor markets for monetary policy in an estimated DSGE model," CFS Working Paper Series 2007/07, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements
    • N01 - Economic History - - General - - - Development of the Discipline: Historiographical; Sources and Methods

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13605. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.